ith the Tuesday release of actress Claire Danes' book, My So-Called Sex Life a new wave of attention has been focused on the damage young actor and possible space creature Leonardo DiCaprio is doing to the lives of Hollywood's young actresses. When this reporter spoke recently with Danes, she was in a near-catatonic state.

 "I just want everybody to know that Leo and I didn't DO anything on the set of Romeo and Juliet. We were just in the same movie together. Hell, most of our scenes were filmed separately, it was all camera tricks that made it seem like we were in bed together, I swear! Somebody, please sleep with me!" said Danes, bursting into tears.

This pitiful scene is being repeated all across Tinseltown as young actresses who've shared the screen with DiCaprio find that men now fear to touch them. Some even cross the street to avoid them, sometimes against swift traffic. This reaction seems to be genetically ingrained in the male sex, an unspoken knowledge that something is not quite right with the young actor, and that even the slightest contact with him leaves a woman strictly undateable. This Curse has extended even to girls who sat in the same classroom with DiCaprio in grade school and singer Alanis Morissette, who once stated in an interview that her astrological sign was Leo.

Most women seem to be strangely immune to DiCaprio's nauseating effects. Some even claim to find him attractive, a tendency that baffles psychologists and medical doctors alike.

"It is my professional opinion that DiCaprio exudes toxic pheromones from tiny ducts behind his ears," noted neurologist P. William Clydesdale commented on the phenomenon. "These pheromones act to confuse the female's neurological systems, resulting in a dizzy sense of confusion and impaired reasoning. As to why these pheromones do not effect the males of the species, my educated guess is that the average male's desire to pop DiCaprio's head like a blister results in increased levels of endorphins in the blood stream, which counteracts the pheromones."

An accurate assessment of how many young careers have been ruined by the Curse of DiCaprio cannot be made, since County health officials have been unable to find any male subjects who can name any films other than Titanic in which DiCaprio has appeared.

DiCaprio's co-star in Titanic, actress Kate Winslet, was very direct when asked how the Curse has effected her career: "No talk. Eat now."

There is a bright hope on the horizon, however. Recent reports have indicated that actress Chloe Svengali is the first documented female to be immune to DiCaprio's insidious pheromones. She has vowed publicly to track down all actresses in upcoming DiCaprio projects, in an effort to warn them before they make any terrible mistakes.

ASA scientists met with a crack team of cultural anthropologists in New York today to discuss the trend of 1980's revivalism, a fad now determined to be a serious threat to the survival of the human race if not brought under control within the next seven years.

"I'd say we've got five years, seven at the outside, before we devolve into marrow-eating cave people once again. Should this trend continue unchecked at it's current rate, the human race is whipped, and whipped good," commented Daniel Furgelman, cultural director for the Smithsonian Institute.

"And if I hear 'Come On Eileen' one more time, I'm going to fucking puke," added Furgelman.

Spin Magazine columnist Kirk Jaded explains the phenomenon:

"It started, of course, with the 80's themselves. The culture of the day was not a threat at the time since it was confined safely to the actual decade of the 1980's. Only later, in the mid-90's, with the advent of Rhino Records' "Awesome 80's" CD collection, did the cultural zeitgeist begin to pull a massive U-turn and head back to it's unfortunate past. Cover versions of 80's standards by irresponsible alternative groups like Save Ferris, Marilyn Manson, Hole and Reel Big Fish only compounded the problem, fooling an entire generation of young music fans into thinking that the 80's were actually, as the youth are fond of saying, 'cool'. This has sounded a death knoll for one of the greatest civilizations ever to walk the face of the earth."

Today's meeting of the CFGOI (The Committee to Fucking Get On With It) was to act as a think-tank to develop means of turning around the current trend. Demonstrators picketed in front of the Committee's headquarters, most of whom admitted to being VH1 stockholders. Documented proposals included Public Service Announcements from prominent 80's figures like Kirk Cameron and Howard Jones to warn kids of the dangers of thinking the 80's were cool, the silencing of Mexican radio and constant airings of the television programs "Mama's Family" and "Small Wonder" in America's classrooms.

"Education is the key," stated Manley Farber, the committee's loudmouth. "If we bring enough kids into actual contact with Boy George, we may just have this thing licked."

I'm not a bad guy, I go to church, I pay my taxes, so what I wanna know is: Hey, when's God gonna stop bustin' my balls? I swear, I get home from work and my belt sander throws a gear, my wife wants me to take her to see Ricky Martin, and my son, dat little tree yeah old fairy climbed inside a spare tire in the back yard and he won't come out for nothin'.

"Hey-oh, ay, those're my balls you're tramplin on up there, big guy! They're the ones that are all blue and swollen from bein' stepped on too much, ya big bum...". Not that I got a thing against God, mind you. Me and the big guy go way back to the third grade when I went to ask Wendy Fischer out onna date and when I sat down in the next seat over from her, some sick sonnofabitch had pissed the chair, I swear to Christ almighty, he was bustin my tiny, hairless balls even back then. I had to sit in dat chair straight through lunch and for the rest of the day until all the others kids had gone home so nobody could see that my trousers was as wet as Tony Danza's back in a raquetball match.

That's some serious stuff for a kid, too, let me tell you that. As an adult, you piss yourself and you can play it off, like "Woah! That Lowenbrau snuck up on me! I ain't been this drunk since da eighth grade graduation!" and that kinda thing. As a kid though, it's taken more as a sign that you ain't never mastered your bladder control and the cheetahs is gonna thin you out from the herd, boy.

One thing I gotta hand it to God, that guy's one hard-workin SOB! He ain't laid off bustin my balls for 34 years, and just when I think he's takin a break, my collie upchucks a canna Manwich onto my new Camaro's suede seats. You couldn't WRITE better ball-bustin' than that.

Even when I was inna prime a my life, eighteen yeahs old, God was there with a bicycle seat and a faulty retaining bolt. Me and Marie, we was goin' steady, and lemmie tell you we was goin' at it. We would have sex at the drop of a hat, and believe you me there was a lotta hat-droppin goin on back den. But we was safe about it, y'know? A Carbone don't ever go into battle unarmed, if you know what I mean when I say that. I always make sure Marie used a rubber, and so I figure we ain't got nuthin to worry about, right? Wrong. Turns out the dumb broad was eatin' the damn things, one of her girlfriends said somethin about oral contraceptives and she got all confused. Next thing we know, bang-bang, we got little Ant'ny taggin along and whenever Marie's got gas it's like a little kid's birthday party around here.

Now I ain't sayin I don't love Marie, and know dat I'm just talkin here just to talk so lemmie talk, but that woman's got about as much sense as a two-legged gopher tap-dancin in a microwave. Or two mountain goats screwin' on the Eiffel Tower, I dunno, somethin like that. Point is she's dumb as shit. We understand each other heah? Good, 'cause nows I can go on about God and my balls and stuff.

God continued to bust my much-maligned balls trew most of the 1980's. Memorable events include da time da Anaheim Angels kicked my motherlovin ass for pukin' in their dugout, da tree months I spent in jail for exposing myself to a boyscout troop, and dat time I came home to da wrong house and ended up punching out a pony and givin' tree armed policemen wedgies after they say I ruin some little girl's birthday party. I spend the weekend in the can after that little caper, but thankfully I'd stuffed enough hot dogs down my shorts on the way out that I was eatin' like a king da whole time.

But don't think that God's Carbone-ball-bustin' plans ended with the era of Regan and bolo ties and all that. Uh-uh. God kept his ping-pong paddle at the ready next to my family jewels for the whole of the new decade as well. Like the time I got caught in that pair of panty hoes with that wild boar, for instance. Or the time I was up on da roof, drunk as hell, tearin' off roof tiles with my golf cleats, and I'll be Goddamned if a stiff wind didn't pick right up and make me take a header off that roof and land on some little old lady who'd come by to sell Amway. For six hours I hadta listen to her bitchin' and moanin like "I think you broke my back! My ribs have perforated my lungs!" Jesus Christ, lady, do I look like a doctor to you? It took damn near forever for the paramedics to get there and a good four hours for them jaws of life to pull her on up outta da sidewalk. Dey almost had to drill under my foundation, the sonsa bitches. It's a rare time like that when God misses a chance to bust my balls further. He musta been off planning the Manwich thing.

The 90's ball-busting that takes the cake though, has to be the time Marie ran outta them contraceptive sponges, and she thought onea them kitchen sink sponges with the green scrubber side would do the trick just as good. Did I mention that Marie's dumber than ten pounds of dirt? When it was all said an done she was pregnant with lil' Jimmy over there and I hadta wear them elasticy beach pants for two months. Jimmy! Get outta the oven, Jimmy! You're too old to play in da oven now, ya little hangnail ya. There're snakes in there, howya like that? Yeah, I thought so.

I wondered all my life, when God's gonna stop breakin my balls. But ya know what? I'm tired of wonderin'. Vinnie Carbone's got a plan. See, I plan on bein extra special nice and good and all that shit my remainin' years of this life. So as I can get into heaven and all, that kinda thing. Then, when I meet God, you can bet I'm gonna give him one hell of a kick right in his hairy, omnipotent sack. I'm gonna strike a blow for the Vinnie Carbones of the world, and then I'm gonna say "Sorry God, but you was breakin' my balls, you was askin for it." And we gonna shake on it and go out for beer and pizza. It's gonna be nice.

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