Greetings SUNFUNer's,
We've all done dumb things in our lives, that's as natural a
part of living as learning not to throw bricks up in the air and
run under them. Studies show that it's 438% easier to make a
really dumb statement than a moderately smart one, so it's no
wonder so many really stupid things get said. Surprisingly
enough, some of them are even said by people other than
politicians. But most dumbness is more moronic than amusing.
Simple foolishness is rarely all that funny. No, to make the
April Fool's gold standard, people have to go beyond the borders
of simple error into the land of clod. Read a few of these
stories and it is easy to appreciate that many of our fellow
citizens are a few raisins short of an oatmeal cookie.
To understand the trouble this can cause, we turn to
Varakin's Law:
"Smart people who don't think they are smart, don't get
into much trouble. Neither do smart people who know
they are smart. Even dumb people who understand that
they aren't all that brainy manage to avoid doing
troublesome things. The people who really get into
trouble are the ones who believe they are much smarter
than they really are."
There we have the very definition of the folks that go the extra
step, the ones who put the id in idiot, the foo in foolish, the
more in moron... Well, you get the idea. These few produce, by
far, the funniest stories for Funnies, if only because you can
imagine that embarrassed look of recognition when they are
finally caught in whatever current dumbness they are doing. The
only thing missing here is a camera to capture that expression,
that perfect look sheepish enough to be served with mint jelly...
We just have to imagine it.
Thanks this week to our contributors, always the most
intelligent and perceptive folks around. This week, we send
special greetings and gratitude to: Jerry Taff, Helen Yee &
Wayne Pokora, Charles Beckman, Rosana Y Leung, Carol J. Becwar,
R.J. Tully, Michael & Susan Will, Jack & Sherrie Gervais, Kerry
Miller, Candice St. Jacques, Jan Michalski, Tim McChain, Yasmin
Leischer, Jim Clayton, Bruce Gonzo, Paul Roser, The Peterson's,
Laura Hedien and Judy McCallum. Thanks to all of you who make me
look less dumb than I ought to, in trying to get this out every
week.
No matter what happens, we always have one sure defense
against stupidity in an of its forms. We can always laugh.
Have A Fooless Week,
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"Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of
the wits."
- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar,
Act I, Scene 2.
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LIKE HANSEL AND GRETEL, ONLY DUMBER...
-----------------------------------
As a getaway vehicle, trucks are usually a pretty poor
choice. But some trucks are even worse than others.
For example, two suspects, a man and a woman, grabbed an
idling truck earlier this week while a delivery man was making a
stop at a convenience store.
Slidell, Louisiana police gave chase and had little trouble
tracing the vehicle the entire 15 miles (24 km) to the town of
Lacombe. It wasn't that hard. For one thing, the truck was
painted with the distinctive signs of the Krispy Kreme doughnut
shop chain. And the back doors of the truck were open, so trays
of doughnuts were spilling out all along the way. Police got
dozens of calls from motorists about the dangerous driver losing
his load all down the highway.
The pair abandoned the truck when they spotted police
closing in. The driver got away, but police captured passenger
Rose Hook, who is in jail.
Their motive for taking the Krispy Kreme truck was unclear.
"I don't know if it was a need for transportation of if they
just had the munchies," said Slidell police spokesman Rob
Callahan. (Reuters)
[ To fully appreciate their foolishness, just try to
imagine two crooks dumb enough to think the cops
couldn't follow a trail of doughnuts... ]
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SAPS AT SEA...
-----------
It was a simple plan, as John Hardy and Kevin Taylor, two
seriously confused guys in Hot Springs, Arkansas, were only out
to steal a boat. And they did - a really nice 44-footer worth
around $110,000. Unfortunately, neither of the captains
outrageous had been around boats much, so as step one of their
plan, they cut loose the mooring lines, set the engine on fire
trying to start it, and got the boat stuck in shallow water.
Realizing they were in over their heads, or soon would be,
they fired off emergency flares, hoping to be rescued. They
were, at the time, only 30 feet (10 meters) from shore.
They were rescued, all right. By the police, who took them
to a nice, dry jail.
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SOME CALL IT ART...
----------------
We suspect that no one in this audience has ever confused
Jerry Springer's blatantly boobish talk show with an intellectual
discussion. But maybe someone has. Better yet is that
approaching the dumbness with a perverse sense of humor seems to
work.
I give you "Jerry Springer: The Opera."
The season's surprise hit on the London stage, it's one of
the hottest tickets in town. Andrew Lloyd Webber is among its
fans, and producer Harold Prince is reportedly considering it for
a New York run. The critics there loved it, with The London Mail
calling it "wildly entertaining," "divinely blasphemous," "witty,
inventive, funny, camp, dirty and in seriously gross taste."
Just like the real show, except for the funny, inventive,
entertaining, camp and witty parts. Another paper compared it to
"The Producers."
While the chorus chants, "Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!," the cast
launches into timeless tunes like "This Is My Jerry Springer
Moment" and "My Mum Used to Be My Dad." The Battersea Art
Centre's production has everything a Springer fan could want:
hysterical transvestites, tap-dancing Ku Klux Klansmen, a diaper
fetishist waving a gun and a finale that has the host himself in
hell, moderating a debate between Jesus and Satan.
This got some writers thinking. Aren't there more TV shows
that are just begging for a classy operatic send-up in song?
Writer Joanne Weintraub of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
suggested:
- "Who Wants to Be a Mezzosoprano?" the singing game show on
ABC.
- "Jiggletto," a new Fox TV entry starring Pamela Anderson.
- "Der Weisenheimer" Where a gap-toothed lad from Indiana
comes to the big city and extorts millions of dollars to do
a late night talk show from men in expensive suits who
detest him.
- "Tristan and Latoya": Can a famous Wagnerian tenor make
sweet music with a beautiful hip-hop singer? Could star
Mandy Patinkin and Brandy in this rollicking sitcomic opera.
- "The WWF Ring Cycle": World Wrestling Federation stars
Parsifal, High C, Extreme Boheme and Madame Iron Butterfly
duke it out for 21 hours of Wagnerian chair-throwing and
trash talking as the audience tries desperately to stay
awake. This opera is best known for the impassioned chorus
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!"
- "The Soprano": about Antonia, an underworld boss and spunky
single mother as celebrated for her cannelloni as for her
ability to inspire terror in rivals and subordinates.
Imagine the tender love duet "Don't Ever Leave Me (Unless
You Want to Wind Up Stuffed in the Trunk of a Camaro)."
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A SIGN OF THE TIMES?
-------------------
It would be hard to work up any sympathy for the racist pin-
hoods of the Ku Klux Klan. It appears, though, that they've
finally lost in their long series of expensive court battles to
be included in the Missouri Highway Department's
"Adopt-A-Highway" cleanup program.
This is a battle the KKK started in 1994 and took all the
way to the Supreme Court, arguing that they had the right to pick
up trash and have their name on signs along that part of the
highway, just like any other group. They were battling for a
section of highway I-55 used in the court-ordered busing of Black
children to formerly segregated schools in near St. Louis. The
state refused, citing the well-known racial requirements of the
Klan's membership, which demand that prospective members be
white, or at least, muddy pink.
The high court reluctantly agreed with the Klan's position
that they were indeed an organization, no matter how biased or
perverse, and ordered the state to allow them into the program.
But the State of Missouri, wanting no part of the
KKKlueless, exercised their own rights, and renamed that
particular stretch of I-55 as the "Rosa Parks Freeway."
Parks was a central figure in the Birmingham Bus boycott in
1955 that launched the civil rights career of a then-unknown
preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr.
I suppose it is then no surprise that the Klan never cleaned
up the road and were finally kicked out of the clean-up group
last year. "Groups are required to pick up litter four times
a year in this program, and our records indicated that the Klan
had not fulfilled their adoption agreement," said Missouri
Department of Transportation spokeswoman Megan Casalone. "They
have never picked up anything off the highway." (Reuters)
[ And even if they did go out, it's well
known that they only pick up white trash... ]
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OUR TOKEN BLONDE JOKE
---------------------
Two blondes are walking down the street and the first blonde
points and says, "Hey, look at that dog with one eye!"
The other blonde covers one of her eyes and says, "Where?"
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HOW TO REALLY MAKE POINTS WITH THE BOSS...
---------------------------------------
The papers in Sweden had a field day last year with the
field trip of gender equality expert Lars Back and his boss.
The pair were on a Delta Airlines flight to represent Sweden
at a UN conference in New York last March when the incident
happened. Back was accompanying his superior, Agriculture
Minister Margareta Winberg, who is responsible for gender
equality in the Swedish government.
According to complaints published in the newspaper
Expressen, Back had been drinking heavily and several passengers
on the flight to New York found the equality experts behavior
less than equitable.
"He was insolent and his behavior toward the women of the
cabin crew was abusive," the paper quoted one passenger as
saying.
Back denied the charges that he had harassed anyone, but a
spokesman did admit that the assistant minister did drink too
much and that he did, indeed, vomit in the lap of his boss.
(Reuters)
[ Any bets the boss lady sent Back back on a
separate flight? ]
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THE SPY WHO CAME IN WITH THE OLD...
--------------------------------
Speaking of pleasing the boss - we have the strange case of
"Source Albert."
Al, a secret agent for the German Federal Intelligence
Service (BND) always made his handlers happy. He was a genius at
producing information that almost no one else had. Almost - but
not quite no one, as it turned out.
Imagine the surprise when it was revealed that a major
source for the 1,000 or so classified documents he provided was
the BND's own files. Albert and an accomplice were selling the
recycled secrets back to the BND for lots of new, fresh money.
Seriously upset at being sold stale tales, the German
government brought the two up on charges. The 51-year-old ex-
bank manager was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and
assessed a fine of $9,200. His accomplice is serving a
four-and-a-half year sentence after being found guilty of fraud
and espionage. (Reuters)
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GRANDPA IS WHAT?!!
---------------
England is famous for its national health plan, which covers
everyone in the country. But such a one-size-fits-all plan can
have seriously stupid problems.
Recently, letters were sent to 30 patients to inform them
that their operations had been delayed. The cause given for the
rescheduling was the perfectly reasonable reason that the
patients were pregnant.
Naturally this might come as a great shock to some of those
patients, but especially to the six elderly gentlemen who got the
notes. The letters were sent by a computer system that
automatically generates the text from a coded input. A
spokesperson for the National Health said it was quite unlikely
that any of the men was actually on the nest.
"The girl operating the system has simply chosen the wrong
option. It's human error," a spokeswoman for the Chesterfield
and North Derbyshire Royal Hospital said. (Reuters)
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AIRPORT TO PILOT: TAKE OFF!
--------------------------
With everything that's happened in air travel in the last
few months, we've come to accept long flight delays as
inevitable. Even so, two years is a bit long for a layover -
even if that is just what the pilot wanted.
The traveller here is private pilot and business executive
Harry Dennis, who was discovered to be living in a hangar at the
Waukesha (Wisconsin) County Airport. Apparently Dennis took to
living with his plane shortly after separating from his wife.
Dennis says the climate-controlled space is cozy and provides a
necessary part-time retreat while he regroups from his recently
completed divorce. And he might need the financial boost, as
records show the divorce hit the networking company executive for
a cool $2 million, plus his $800,000 house.
While airport officials are used to the occasional overnight
stay by a pilot, this is pretty extreme. They say that Dennis'
fully functional bachelor pad inside a hangar is unheard of.
In addition to furniture and carpeting, Dennis has installed
laundry facilities, a refrigerator and stove, a desktop computer,
an exercise treadmill, a telephone and a bathroom with shower.
He even has hunting trophies hanging on the walls.
While Dennis owns the hangar, it is on land leased under
agreement from Waukesha County, which says that the lease only
includes storing the plane, not the pilot.
Dennis didn't seem to mind all that much and said he'd
likely take off for California. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
[ Sure... Heating a hangar will be much
cheaper there. ]
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BUT TRIUMPH, TRIUMPH IN THE END...
-------------------------------
In Paris, under the Arc de Triumph, burns the eternal flame.
Almost eternal, anyway. The flame has been burning since 1921,
except for those rare instances when someone tries to put it out.
In the most recent attempt, a man tried to put out the flame
in about the most direct way possible. He sat on it.
Final score: Flame 1, Backside 0.
Police hauled the man and his singed can to the capital's
Bichat Hospital, where the suspect was reported to be resting on
his stomach. His injuries were fortunately not serious.
(Reuters)
[ But he's quite likely to get burned in
court... ]
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© 2002 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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