Surreality Check

These days the skies are waning, the moon is blue and the soundtrack to my world sounds something like Air Supply dueting with Barry Manilow doing a cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman."

If that weren't bad enough, there are a lot of extranneous distractions which are not only preoccupying my focus, but are weird in and of themselves. First, there is news that Leif Garret, ie former Tiger Beat cover-boy, was arrested for -- get this combo -- not having a subway ticket and carrying 'narcotics.' How many times do you jump a turnstile whilst carrying some smack and then get nailed by the cops?

Apparently once too often, in Leif's case. Oops.

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Then there's the news that Clarence Ray Allen, who at 76 years and one day old, was finally executed by the State of California for a variety of crimes. Mr. Allen's attorneys tried to stay his conviction citing his advanced age and his failing health, which included diabetes, blindness, partial deafness and his use of a wheelchair. Apparently, Mr. Allen was (sic) in such awful health that he had to be injected a second time with the poison cocktail that eventually made his life a footnote.

The reason why I bring up Mr. Allen's execution -- aside from the fact that I am glad that this shitbird failed to convince The Termischwarzenegger that he was "too old to die," as his lawyers claimed -- is I was reading the commentary by the state on his pre-execution medical status and found same to be memorable (an understatement):

"Having suffered a heart attack back in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.

"'At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life,' said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. 'We would resuscitate him, then execute him.'"

Way to value human life, Mr. Crittendon. I'm all warm n' fuzzy now.

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Next up on the "Did They Really Say That?" Blotter: New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin described the rebuilding of the city in curious terms. Specifically, he said that New Orleans, pre-Katrina, was a 'chocolate' city and should remain that way post-rebuilding. He's gotten a lot of abuse over the ill-chosen remark, especially considering the entire text of his chocolate-related dialogue:

"'How do you make chocolate? You take dark chocolate, you mix it with white milk, and it becomes a delicious drink. That is the chocolate I am talking about,' he said. 'New Orleans was a chocolate city before Katrina. It is going to be a chocolate city after. How is that divisive? It is white and black working together, coming together and making something special.'"

It's not a white chocolate city; it's not a dark chocolate city. It's Shine-Olah with a shit cherry on top.

Good luck getting re-elected this year, schmuck.

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Finally, the sign that the apocalypse is nigh, for sure, has to be the news from the Boston Legal set that William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, will be selling his now-emitted kidney-stone on E-Bay for charity. He described it as the "ultimate piece of Star Trek memorabilia."

Is it me, or does it amaze everyone that William Shatner somehow manages to come off as an even bigger douchebag each time he's in the news?

Thanks, Captain. While he's at it, he should have demonstrated he was serious about raising major coin for charity by creating an E-Bay auction that offers the winning bidder a chance to kick him in the balls and duct-tape his mouth shut. That'd be far more valuable and an auction that would get a LOT of bids.

At least we wouldn't have to watch those irritating Priceline commercials anymore.