I have a sort of journalism mentor who got me into all this many moons ago (yes, I actually have been a serious journalist, despite what you might concur from reading this). He always told me that to use vulgar words was a cop-out, and that there s always a more intelligent way of expressing oneself. But sometimes it s just plain hard to do. If any of you watched George W. Bush s let s-go-to-war-now speech last week, you may know what I mean. I actually sat and wrote notes as he spoke, and found myself running out of obscenities. I ll spare you the ranting that included recommending that he commit all sorts of unnatural acts with various animals who share his same IQ (my apologies to the animal kingdom), but I will pose this one question about the . . . uh, guy: Is there no one in his family, no one on his staff, no one in the world, who can teach the leader of the free world to pronounce the word nuclear instead of nucular? I finally stopped counting the times he said it halfway into the speech, when I had to turn him off because it was making me have to chant. And what about that eerie way he was kind of whispering the same answer to every question? It was really kind of creepy. Kind of looked like he had raided his niece Noelle s medicine cabinet and accidentally grabbed the Lithium instead of the Xanax. I think ol George is having a mental breakdown, myself, and needs to undergo a very carefully executed psychological evaluation before he starts the Armageddon process. Or better yet, let s ask the expert, physician and syndicated health columnist Dr. Gott, even more so now my absolute hero of all time. In case you missed his column on March 7th in The Commercial Appeal, let me just fill you in on a couple of questions he addressed, so you can have these mental images to think about whenever you think you have problems: DEAR DR. GOTT: I am a 75-year-old woman in good health. For two years I have noticed an intermittent discharge of mucus from my rectum. Sometimes, my stool is all mucus. At other times it runs out without warning. My, my, my, my, my. Isn t that lovely? The paper won t publish gay personal ads or the cause of death in the obits, but mucus uncontrollably spewing from an elderly woman s rectum? Hey, no sweat. Well, I imagine there is a bit of sweat involved with that one. And how about this one: DEAR DR. GOTT: I have twin grandsons, age 13, who continue to wet their beds at night. They are big boys and weigh about 290 pounds apiece. Now one of the boys also has bowel movements in his pants. As you can imagine, their situations are having disastrous social consequences [I am levitating from my chair]. Also, the twins are very belligerent and uncooperative. Well, dear God. Two 300-pound, unruly 13-year-olds laying around in their own urine and feces and getting all hot under the collar about it whenever their poor old grandma says something about it to them. And we want to force this culture on the Middle East? Grandma might be better off trading those tumultuous twins in for the woman with the mucus coming out of her rectum. She s probably easier to get along with much less to pick up and move around when need be. I feel for them all. Really, I do. But all things happen for a reason and it is not my place to question any of it. Except for the headline. See, there s always one innocuous letter in there and they always use that for the headline, as in this case, in which it reads, Ultrasound treatments will not dissolve bone spurs. Now, who cares about that? How about, instead, printing a headline that reads, TWO-TON TWINS SAY YES TO URINE WHILE LEAKING MUCUS GIVES WOMAN CAUSE FOR RECTAL PAUSE? And for heaven s sake, put it on the front cover. I guess I m going to have to go over to The Commercial Appealand have a talk with that new editor about what really sells newspapers. In the meantime, here s a brief look at some of what s going on around town this week. If you re reading this a day early, on Wednesday the 12th, there s a show tonight at Murphy s by Mark Akin of the Subteens and Justice Naczycz. As for today, Thursday, Ballet Memphis opens its weekend run tonight of Momentum 3 at Buckman Performing and Fine Arts Center. Billy Gibson is at CafÇ Zanzibar. The Ordinary Way is at the Full Moon Club. Cherry Valence with Modey Lemon & The Mistreaters are at the Hi-Tone. And last but certainly not least, let s not forget that it s March Monster Mammary Madness Month at Christie s Cabaret, where, as the ad reads, there s Plenty Uptopp and you get a free beverage with lunch.
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