fter years of stagnant tourism blamed by many on the state’s long-standing slogan of “Georgia: It’s Where They Filmed Deliverance,� tourism officials are convening this month to christen a new state slogan, in hopes of inspiring vacationers to contribute to Georgia’s beleaguered economy. Though officials have yet to decide on what the new slogan will be, one trait shared by all early candidates is a complete avoidance of the 1972 Burt Reynolds hillbilly rape film.

After the Georgia Tourism Board changed its slogan from “Georgia: Wow!� to “Georgia: It’s Where They Filmed Deliverance,� in 1973, the state’s tourism dropped to virtually zero, except for the few stragglers who came looking for “hot, man-on-man action,� and who were mostly disappointed by their visits to the Peach state. At the time, state tourism officials blamed the decline on poor marketing support, and redoubled their efforts to get the word out about the key role their state played in the John Boorman blockbuster.

“Come on down and learn to play the banjo,� intoned smiling spokesperson Walter Goering, plucking a homemade banjo in the first of a series of television ads shown nationwide in the mid-70’s.

As the state’s tourism gradually fell to negative levels, meaning that now even native Georgians were vacationing in South Carolina, tourism officials expressed bafflement at the public’s reaction to their foolproof campaign.

“Why wouldn’t people want to come visit the natural Georgian beauty what was captured in that movie?� questioned tourism director Samuel Chick in a 1978 interview. “There’s trees, rivers… and some trees. All the things you think of when you think about Georgia.�

Though the hit film Deliverance did feature a stunning panorama of Georgia’s natural beauty, in addition to healthy portions of the manly Burt Reynolds before he went all soft on us, many felt the infamous scene where actor Ned Beatty’s character is violently raped by inbred yokels may have dominated filmgoers’ memories, marking Georgia as a place they would never, ever want to go. Tourism officials, however, remained skeptical of this explanation.

“What don’t they like? That little retard kid with the banjo?� asked Chick in a 1983 interview. “They know he wasn’t real right? Just all foam rubber and airplane glue, like Yoda. We ain’t got none of them in Georgia. No Yodas neither. You find me a banjo-playin’ retard or a Yoda in the state of Georgia, anywhere, and I’ll give you a shiny new apple. That’s how confident I am in that statement.�

The Deliverance campaign continued in Georgia until 1998, when during a hypnotic regression treatment Chick uncovered repressed memories of the rape scene from the film. After attempting to convince the rest of the tourism board of his findings, Chick was fired for being queer. But the event did serve as a breakthrough for several Georgia state officials, who promptly ordered a new state slogan.

Weeks later, Georgia’s slogan was changed to “Georgia: They Actually Filmed Most of Deliverance in West Virginia.� This helped some, but a large part of the damage had already been done in the preceding 26 years. Over the next twelve months, several new slogans were attempted to minimize the damage further, including “Georgia: No Hillbillies Here!� and “Georgia: The Unrapingest Place on Earth.�

Now state officials believe the time has come for a complete break from their sloganing past, possibly with one involving puppy dogs. Early proposals include “Georgia: A Mouthful of the South� to appeal to food fans and “Georgia: It’s Saferific!� appealing to security-minded vacationers by highlighting Georgia’s appealing lack of New York and Oklahoma-style terrorist attacks. This reporter’s suggestion that the tourism board might look into signing Burt Reynolds to act as a pitchman for the new slogan was met with an initial flurry of enthusiasm, quickly followed by a very rude ending to the telephone call.

nyone waiting for the much-talked about "October Surprise" may have found it when, on an Oct. 23 broadcast of Saturday Night Live, musical ingénue Ashlee Simpson suffered a technical glitch that revealed her lip-synching to the world.

Legendary "October Surprises" have become a part of election year speculation, most memorably in the Carter-Reagan battle for the White House in 1980, when some suggested Carter's administration would pull off an October release of Iranian hostages and seal his re-election. Instead, he completely and utterly failed to release the hostages, and maybe that was the October Surprise, for the other guy. But you get the picture.

In the Bush-Kerry race, wild postulations on 2004's "October Surprise" included the capture of Osama bin Laden, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, the release of new information about the economy, or a major degradation in the already-shitty Iraq situation. But if anyone had any money on a hack pop singer igniting the lip-synching controversy, you can collect your winnings, Charlie.

Simpson, a teen tart and possibly sister to "Chicken of the Sea" Jessica Simpson, was caught close-mouthed on stage before a live studio audience while the wrong vocal track rolled as her band played a different song. She apologized to the audience at the end of the show, blaming the incident on a wardrobe malfunction; later, Simpson admitted to using the backing vocal, but said she was sorry and it was the first time and she would never do it again, for honest this time.

The embarrassing event follows another flare-up in the lip-synching issue, when Elton John recently blasted ancient crumpet Madonna for allegedly lip-synching in her live concerts. John was drunkenly furious to hear Madonna had been nominated for "Best Live Act" in some shameless back-patting awards show. "Anyone who lip-synchs in public on stage when you pay seventy-five pounds to see them should be shot," said the famous "Crocodile Rock" singer, who is very gay.

As such flaps become newsworthy, it becomes harder and harder for the candidates to avoid the lip-synching controversy that divides the nation. For younger voters and pop-music, lip-synching is often a necessary evil that helps make stage-shows more involved and choreographed, while other voters and real music fans denounce it as technical trickery for the untalented. Older voters also often ask for the candidates to take a hard stance against rap music, which they proclaim is "just talkin'."

Although his platform is definitively against lip-synching, except on M-TV parody shows, Bush and his campaign would rather avoid a public stand-off on an issue that might alienate the young voters he seeks. While preaching to his conservative base at rallies across the nation, Bush has been known to challenge the legitimacy of music acts using pre-recorded vocals.

"My personal favorite has always been the Charlie Daniels Band," said Bush, to the same vigorous roar of applause he always receives. "If you can catch him lip-synching, I'll give you a coupon good for one free kick in my ass."

The Kerry campaign, on the other hand, has played it close to the vest, trying to court voters who feel that lip-synching should be regulated by the states and private citizens, rather than the government.

"I am against, and always have been against a constitutional amendment banning the use of pre-recorded vocal tracks by a live act," said Kerry. "This should not be taken as support of those who would choose to use such tracks live. I believe live music should be sang, not played back. Clearly, I would like to be elected."

If my inbox and the random uninformed street noise are any indication, interest in the ancient Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the Great is at an all-time high right now, thanks in large part to the release of the Alexander the Great's Great Abs workout video last month. But some portion of the public's Alexanderlust is likely attributable to Oliver Stone's upcoming biopic, which garnered blood-red headlines recently due to Stone's decision to make the film's battle scenes more realistic by staging actual battles between armies of actors, leading to hundreds of casualties. America was outraged and excited, while the rest of Hollywood was relieved that there'd finally be some waitering jobs opening up around town.

But with renewed public slob interest always comes the usual swarthy stink of misinformation, and this time it has clouded around Alexander's so-called reputation as a great military leader. The trouble here is that most modern persons tend to think of sarcasm and irony as relatively recent inventions. But in fact, people in the ancient past were far more sarcastic than we are today, which has lead to more than a few historical misconceptions. Chief among these is the story of Alexander "the Great," an astonishingly mediocre leader who was given his title by a highly ironic public. Likewise with other historical misnomers, including the "Great" Wall of China, Atilla the "Hun," and the Ottoman "Empire."

The ancient Macedonians were the most sarcastic people in recorded human history, a trait many historians believe lead to their downfall, since it eventually became impossible to tell when anyone meant anything sincerely at all. In those days "Alexander the Great" was always said with an eye roll and a drawn out vowel in the word "great," implying a sentiment like "Oh greeeeat, here comes that shithead Alexander."

Alexander was a handsome young man, by the standards of that day, which meant he was ugly. As a boy Alexander was tutored by Aristotle, but not correctly, since Aristotle enjoyed nothing more than proving his superiority by teaching bogus information and marveling at how stupid children were to never catch on. Aristotle's tutelage provided the foundation for Alexander's life-long misunderstanding of world events, which led to his conquering of allies Persia and Arcadia in 330, then the eventual conquering of his own nation during a bloody siege in 328 B.C.

Alexander took over the throne of Macedonia after the murder of his father, Philip the Merely Adequate, in 336 B.C. Historians believe that Alexander's mother Olympias plotted Philip's murder, thanks in part to the cryptic title of her later autobiography, Die, Cocksucker. Some point the blamey finger at Alexander himself, due to the well-known fact that he went out of his way to piss on his father's grave every morning thereafter for the rest of his life. Even when he was away at war, Alexander would send special scouts back from the front to "water" the grave every morning at dawn. But this was a common show of respect in those times, at least among the rare sons who hadn't been poisoned or wrapped in bacon and left unsupervised to wander in the lion pen by their fathers before reaching adulthood.

After succeeding his father as king, Alexander shocked the kingdom by not assassinating his retarded brother Arrivederchus, which counted as extreme liberalism back in those days. In actuality, Alexander liked to keep Arrivederchus around to help him look more "the Great" in comparison, and his somewhat autistic brother was handy for estimating casualty figures after large battles. This unprecedented show of open-heartedness also served as a public-relations boon after Alexander had most of the rest of his family assassinated.

Among Alexander's many achievements over the course of his career were the conquerings of the Tits and the Oldmans, and providing universal health care for single-parent families. Alexander made a name for himself primarily by conquering peoples who were just on the verge of collapsing already, then taking credit for an astounding military victory. When Alexander conquered the Dinks in 326 B.C., Macedonian soldiers actually had to roust most of the Dink army from their beds to inform them that they'd been conquered. This took several days, since the Dinks were profoundly heavy sleepers, and this harrowing campaign went down in history as one of the most grueling of Macedonian military victories.

Peoples were routinely being conquered back then, because no one really gave two shits about that kind of thing, and if somebody wanted to all the fuss and headache of being the ruler, then they could have it. Any enterprising or even vaguely competent military leader could make an easy name for himself conquering the many apathetic kingdoms that littered the map in those days. Long-forgotten peoples like the Choads, the Ninnies, and the Blue Finks existed in large part just to be conquered. Oftentimes a conquering army would send ahead advance scouts to organize the haphazard country folk into "nations" of people so that they could be conquered in a memorable fashion.

Even with that being the case, Alexander got a little carried away with it and ended up conquering most of the known world before he was done. That the "known world" consisted of only a 20-square mile radius around Macedonia was of little consequence at the time, since nobody knew that there were oodles of other peoples out there remaining unconquered in far-off places. Twenty miles is still a long way to walk, however, and the Macedonian soldiers never forgave Alexander for making them hoof it so far entirely on foot, due to his lust for horsemeat gyros.

Regardless, Alexander conquered many a feeble people, and his troops came to call him "King of Everything," because he told them to.

Alexander eventually died of a broken heart at the age of 32, on the outskirts of Macedonia in 324 B.C. Historians are split over whether this was a romantic kind of broken heart, brought on by the untimely and ultimately tacky death of Alexander's lifelong gay lover Homocleus, or if this was just a primitive medical term referring to the fact that Alexander's heart reportedly leapt out of his mouth like a bullfrog while he was being beaten to death by the very soldiers he'd dragged to all ends of creation on his asinine crusade.

Alexander was survived by his wife and their son, the byproduct of an uncomfortable seven-minute tryst made necessary by the high failure rate of man-on-man pregnancies in ancient times. Though homosexuality was the norm of the day and a lot more fun, men of power still took brides for the purposes of creating an heir, necessitating an awkward wedding night followed by twice-yearly postcards on major holidays.

After Alexander's death, his mother had virtually everyone else in the government killed in various plots, until her machinations became too complex and she inadvertently plotted to have herself killed in 318 B.C. In time, Alexander's son Alexander the Better Than You've Heard became king, only to be killed soon after as a result of one of Olympias's old plots that someone found lying around.

With the release of Stone's film, audiences will at long last flock to learn the truth about Alexander, or at least four or five will who aren't going just for a chance to see Colin Farrell's dong.

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