ook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan granted alleged musician R. Kelly permission to attend this month’s Grammy awards in a decision handed down this week, on the condition that Kelly avoid all contact with fellow age-of-consent-impaired hit factory Michael Jackson during the ceremony. Though unexpected, legal experts are applauding the judge’s decision as a deft move likely to quell public fears that the two might swap child-molesting secrets backstage at the awards ceremony.

Kelly, nominated for two Grammies for his double-platinum album that’s actually titled “Chocolate Factory,� is awaiting trial on child pornography charges stemming from a 2002 video that allegedly shows the R&B singer engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl. A spokesperson from Kelly’s record label was unable to confirm if the video in question was for a cut off Kelly’s new album, or if it was one of several previous music videos showing the singer engaging in sexual acts with 14-year-old girls.

While many have applauded Judge Gaughan’s move, some have called it unnecessary considering that Jackson isn’t nominated for any Grammies this year and will likely only show his face if he can sneak it through the bomb-detecting machines at event security. Gaughan, however, defends the efforts to prevent his own personal vision of hell from coming true.

“Because I feel that it’s in the best public interest for Mr. Kelly to be able to attend this ceremony, I won’t deprive the world of the soulful beats and funky grooves of his child-fucking music,� explained Gaughan. “From ‘Freak You Weekly’ to ‘Stained Retainer,’ Kelly has long captured the essence of lusting after the unattainable, not-quite-ripe fruit. However, there’s something very wrong about imagining Kelly hanging out with a ripe fruit like Michael Jackson, and I won’t have that on my watch. Especially after I’ve just eaten. Likely or not, America can’t afford to see the two of them together at the Grammies, the Oscars, or even at a Yankees game this summer. And God forbid I see pictures of those two parasailing in Cancun on some kind of child molester double-date vacation at some point in the future. Yuck-o-rama.�

Scandal first found Kelly in 1994, when he produced Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number, the debut album of 15-year-old R&B sensation Aaliyah, which featured a joke title that would only become funny years later. That same year Kelly and Aaliyah secretly wed, then hastily annulled after Aaliyah’s parents Naaaomben and Shizbitch Haughton forbade Kelly from getting his statutory freak on with their high-school student daughter while they were home.

Apparently emboldened by his brush with infamy, Kelly got his lawsuit on dozens of times during the second half of the decade, settling out of court on charges of allegedly impregnating a 16-year-old, coercing a 15-year-old into participating in an underage girl orgy, and abusing his responsibilities as a Girl Scout troop leader. No sooner were these suits settled than dozens more 14-year-old girls came out of the woodwork, including a Chicago-area 9th-grade health class that claimed Kelly had impersonated their teacher and sexed up the entire class one afternoon in 1996.

Despite the numerous allegations, Kelly’s career showed no ill effects, with the singer scoring two number one hits in 1999 with “Shit, This is Gettin’ Expensive� and “Girl You’re a Woman to Me.�

However in February 2002, elephant shit hit the fan when the Chicago Sun-Times reported it had found a videotape showing Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl, and copies of the tape in question were quickly sold as bootlegs and on the Internet. Despite the claims of authenticity in the Sun-Times promotional materials, there was some initial public question as to whether the man on the tape was really Kelly, whether the girl really was underage, and whether the action was truly “all-anal� or merely the product of deceptive camera angles. Police later confirmed the authenticity of the tape after investigating the Sun-Times’ exorbitant shipping charges.

Singer Jackson recently pleaded innocent to seven counts of performing lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14 and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent, then went on some weird rant about how he calls wine “Jesus Juice� and kids should be able to drink juice.

iting a moral obligation to use all quasi-legal means at his disposal to protect the sanctity of heterosexual marriage against any and all potential dangers, President Bush used his State of the Union address last Tuesday to call for a preemptive strike against the future threat of gay marriage. In the speech, Bush suggested that since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last year that a ban on same-sex marriages was in clear violation of the US Constitution, the clear answer was to amend the Constitution and take out the part where fags can get married.

Conservatives, still upset about the 1967 Supreme Court decision that struck down state laws banning interracial marriages, applauded Bush's medicine ball-sized cajones. Meanwhile, all remaining Democratic candidates whiffed at the issue completely, knocking over the T-ball stand. Off the record, however, one candidate whose name rhymes with "you thin bitch" pointed out that despite his grave concern for the state of this sacred institution, Bush made no mention of other, more widespread threats to the sanctity of marriage, including spousal abuse, astronomical divorce rates and Britney Spears.

"I've taken it upon myself the responsibility to halt the crusading of activist judges who, I might remind you, were not elected," Bush paused for a moment during the speech for his point to sink in. The effect was not what the president had probably intended, however, since none of the assembled reporters were sure if by this he meant that judges weren't reflecting the will of the people, or if Bush was attempting to appear smarter by comparing himself to a judge, since he wasn't elected either.

"I think we might have to have a look here at that Constitution," Bush commented wryly, staring down his nose through an imaginary pair of glasses. "And make sure the founding fathers didn't sneak any other unpatriotic bits into the fine print."

When asked later if he thought the American people should vote on the contents of the Constitution every year, to prevent the document from ever conflicting with contemporary mores, whims or prejudices, President Bush pretended a large bug had flown into his ear and he couldn't hear nothing.

Vice President Dick Cheney, put in the hilariously ironic pickle of having to support an Anti-Gay president while not appearing to squeeze one on his lesbian daughter Mary, chose his words carefully. "Uuh… gay is good. Unless you think it isn't. But I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole. All people should be treated with respect and dignity. But we also shouldn't allow the fine institution of marriage to be sullied. Not that gay people are dirty. Can I go now?"

"All people are equal in God's sight," Bush announced charitably. "But let this be an example to the unpatriotic peoples in Europe and elsewhere who say the United States thinks it is God. We know where to draw the line on who gets to go heavily into debt while bowing to social convention, even if God doesn't."

Before being wrestled into a van by his handlers, Bush made vague mention of a proposed CIA program to weed out gay moles inside traditional marriages. While it is not clear how highly this threat to national insecurity ranks on the President's to-do list, most observers conclude it is likely nestled comfortable in-between "catch Saddama bin Laden" and "watch Ultimate Fighting Championship."

Testifying against the mob hasn't been as much fun as I thought it would be. Not only has my life been repeatedly threatened and endangered, I've had to change my name and address more times than Martin Luther, and they've made me give back all those nice suits. But good people, I'm convinced I'm doing the right thing. It feels far too horrible to be the funner brand of wrong thing I'm more familiar with.

Despite my own convictions, however, the mobsters gunning for Rok remain unconvicted. Which brings me to something I once vowed to you, my mother, and the state department I would never do—I, Rockwell T. Finger, must leave the country.

I state it somewhat generally, as I've already left the country. At least now I know the world is not flat, it at least has another hemisphere. I'm living down under, and this time I don't mean in mother's basement. Australia, good people. G'day, queen! Like they say locally.

How can you say anything bad about Australia? Let's try. For one, I'm not certain what they've been told, but this language is certainly not English. Where I come from, America, we invented English, and I know English when I hear it. They have all sorts of oddball names for things down here. Mates, sheilas, kangaroos—I know a five-foot rat walking upright like a man when I see it. Cutesy names don't help me get to sleep any better at night. Maybe once I've finished the giant mousetrap I'll know sleep again.

Felchyana's taken to the place quite well, but she's a foreigner, no surprise there. All non-America places are probably alike to her. Unroll a sleeping mat out on the tundra and crash for a while, all the same. She has started to add these Australian colloquialisms to her speech though. I thought at first anything was better than gangsta slang, but changed my mind after coming home to, "Oy, bitch!" a few dozen nights.

Not that I have a job. I intended to commute to the commune as I had in the past, but I ran straight into some body of water following the map north. I can still communicate using this "Intro-Net" device, but it's not the same as being "hands-on" in the office. Sitting at my desk, holding my hands tightly on my old Royal typewriter so Ted Ted doesn't take it to hock at the local Pawn & Gun, trying to think about what really pisses me off that hasn't been sufficiently covered in previous columns or constitutional amendments. Working from home is just not for me.

I will say it's been a new experience. And I hate those. Which is good, since I pay the bills with my seething, undying hatred after I allow it to fester and boil up into column inches. Not that I was ever in danger of losing it, not as long as those New York Times liberals are still alive and kicking. So in the end, it may be good fuel for many more columns, but right now, I'm having trouble getting a good hate on.

But you know Rok Finger's way of doing things—always give everything a fair shot. Then when it fails miserably you can sound even more sincere in your complaints. Felchyana and I are going out this week to find where they filmed that boxing movie trilogy in the Z-Land. Afterwards, if I can spare the time, I'm going to reunite Men at Work, a little extra-credit brownnosing for boss Bagel. Eventually, one day, it will be safe to set foot on American soil again. And when that day comes, I'm going to take a hefty dump on Australia before leaving. With affection.

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