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."

This week's Nedmiller Column is excerpted from "Spastic Diaper: The Ned Nedmiller Story" by Rolando Burf.

It's sad that in these glad-handed, capricious, "what have you done for me lately?" days that we live in, all but the most grizzled historians have forgotten the important role that Nedmonton Nicklefish Nedmiller played in making the American railway system a reality. Much of the credit has been lain at the feet of the feetless Chinamen of that day, for their thankless toil and unlikely balancing skills. And not to mention those of then-president Hubert "Bumper" Humper, whose administrative zeal was matched only by his fits of giggling when Germans said things like "Zeal ze enzvelope!". But in truth, when one truly studies the unpublished crumbs and discarded scraps of History, an entirely different story comes into focus. It is the story of Ned Nedmiller and the Laughing Machine.

The year was 1874, or damn near it, some claim it was 1974 but they're blind drunk, and anyway, it was 1874. America was in the throes of serious growing pains, seeing as in that day Manifest Destiny was more than just an R&B duo. In fact, it was a phrase that most thought referred to a barbershop quartet. But one man, a sawdust critic named Romulus Stinkleather, remembered from his third grade Social Studies class that it had something to do with the country. And armed only with that half-remembered factoid, America set out to conquer the land that would one day be known as America.

It took many years and the invention of the machine gun, but finally true Americans (those folks who had washed up on the East Coast after fleeing Europe like rats from a somersaulting speedboat) kicked out all of the tent-dwelling longhairs who were squatting on their rightful lands, and the American Dream stretched from glorious coast to coast, and north and south to imaginary lines drawn to keep out the riff-raff, be they too white or not white enough.

The hairy-headed Americans of that day conquered the country and got to the West coast in such a hurry that they completely forgot that they had left the wood-burning stove on at home. They needed a way to get back East, and fast. The answer came from a small boy of four (don't ask me how four people had one baby, these were not particularly religious times) who set the world on it's ear with one word: Monorail. Of course, Monorails didn't exist at the time, and he was roundly beaten for teasing the people of those times. And just to be safe, he was given the treatment for the "kissing disease", Mononucachusetts, which at that time entailed kissing a rabid weasel and being thrown in the river locked inside a gun safe.

An inventor from Bulgaria had a better idea: The Double-Monorail. Under his system, two nonexistent Monorails would run side-by side, and in case one disappeared due to not existing, passengers could simply board the other Monorail and continue their journey. The "DubbaRail", as it was called, was a huge success, and it's maiden voyage from the fledgling town of Los Angeles to the even more fledgling town of East L.A. was completely sold out. Tragedy struck, however, when both Monorails derailed and crashed into the Hollywood Fatburger, which didn't exist yet either, killing 17 people who were not yet born.

The inventor's brother, also a Bulgarian inventor, dedicated his life to completing his brother's work and providing the American people (the European ones, not the longhairs) with a mode of cross-continental transportation that was safe, cheap and most importantly, existed. Deciding that Monorails were altogether far too dangerous, the inventor's brother (also an inventor) decided to carry out his brother's vision, only without the Monorail part.

After making an impassioned speech, entitled "I Have A Dream About My Brother's Wife", the inventor's brother was able to secure funding from President "Bumper" Humper, and construction of parallel cross-country "Walking Rails" commenced.

Feetless Chinamen toiled under the most inhumane conditions in the building of these Walking Rails. The tortures they endured included gentle spring days, rolling green pastures and enormous cobalt-blue skies. Some turned to poetry and idle daydreaming as a means of escape. Few of these Chinamen left with their dignity intact. As a matter of fact, few left at all, it's rumored that many are still lazing about, their rail-building tools cast aside as they count the petals on daisies.

However, the Chinamen hit a figurative brick wall in their progress across the country when they reached the Plains states. For this was the land of the buffalo, and rumor had it that buffalo liked nothing more than eating Chinamen like they were peppermint sticks. The Chinamen had heard stories of these fiendish beasts, and pictured them with razor-sharp claws and teeth like dinner plates, maybe even wings like dinner plates. Naturally, they almost shit themselves laughing when they actually saw a buffalo, and reminded themselves to kick their friends' asses when they got back to California.

However, the buffalo did provide a real impediment in the building of the Walking Rails. Mainly because they just stood there, right in the path of the railroad, and were buffalo. Which, according to scientists, entails mostly standing there and smelling like a discarded sofa. And while it was legal to blow a mountain out of the way with TNT, there were strict environmental regulations against strapping dynamite to a buffalo. So, much like your average buffalo, construction of the Walking Rails stood still.

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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