One of my favorite pages of the newspaper is the letters to the editor. It’s a fascinating, sometimes frightening, look into the soul of the unwashed masses. A letter writer in this morning’s paper had a great idea for how to solve all of California’s fiscal woes. (It’s the third letter on the page.)
Go ahead, California. Be like Tennessee. If you dare.
The final episode of the Osbournes this season was pretty damn strange, even for that drug and obscenity addled family. The implication seemed to be that not only this episode, but the whole series, has been a fake. Totally scripted. I’d always figured there was more than a little aping for the cameras. But this made me wonder.
Then I found this site, which has “proof” the whole thing is a fake. It seems some diabled guy (“I suffered a spinal cord injury when I fell over a second-level railing at a Whitesnake concert in 1987.”) is using his Tivo to search for clues and has found plenty. Hey, if Tivo is involved, it’s gotta be legit.
Is Ozzy a fake? Is this site some sort of spoof? You be the judge.
A former co-worker, Dave Carrillo, died recently of a heart attack at 41. He was a great person and journalist, and Ollie Reed, a reporter for The Albuquerque Tribune, put together a wonderful tribute to Dave. He quotes a lot of people I worked with at The Trib, probably the “golden age” of my journalism career. The talent in that newsroom was astounding. Ollie also included a quote from me. The one he couldn’t print, however, is actually pretty funny.
Dave and my wife, Lara, were constantly engaged in good-natured sparring. Both worked on the design desk, and I was on the copy desk. Lara came up to me, knowing I was studying Spanish, and asked for some invective in espanol. I told her to tell Carrillo, “Coma Mierda,” which means “eat shit.”
So she saunters from the copy desk to the design desk, repeating the phrase along the way so she wouldn’t forget it. But in customary Lara fashion, she managed to mangle it.
“Como mierda,” she barked at Carrillo, who at first looked bewildered, then launched into a characteristic Carrillo fit of hysterics at this designer who had just come up and announced: “I eat shit.”