Suicide For Dummies

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Amy Winehouse...It's all in the name. Only problem is, wine didn't cut the mustard. On second thought, neither did marijuana, hard liquor, prescription pills, illegal street drugs, or any combination there of. When you're 26 abd a hot pop singer in the UK, what better way to spend the day than to spend it "in a boat on a river, with tangerine people and marmalade skies?" I started hearing about this troubled singer about six months ago, when she first splashed onto the Billboard music charts and more often than not, the tabloids. This sounded like someone who needed help and was looking for it in all the wrong places. I usually keep my distance from Xerox copied top 40 songs however, my curiosity got the better of me and I had to hear for myself what all the "hubba-ballou" was all about. Surprisingly, this crap is good. A good kind of crap. With hints of classic 1960's Motown mixed in with R&B and Soul. It's kind of weird that some youngin' from overseas used these genres together to come up with a refreshing sound. Putting all that nonsense aside, what makes this young woman tick and why is she still painstakingly clinging on to a miserable life? She's become a parody of suicide and places the word in a negative light. Hey, it's downright insulting to all those before her who did the job and did it right, like Adolph Hitler for example. It's out of my element to piece together a "shopping list" of all this kid's issues but, in recent months, her partying lifestyle has pushed her closer to the edge. Hell, she's got enough toxins in her system to kill a stable of horses. Superman would even be crawling on his hands and knees after this! According to her, all the dope and booze are merely "recreational" as she continues to deny, deny, deny. Was her first U.S. single Rehab intended to be some sort of therapy? If that's a good idea then Dr. Phil makes Dr. Sigmund Freud looke like a quack. Someone needs to hurry up and write a Suicide For Dummies How-To book because she's not getting it. Not only are all the toxins affecting her body but, most notably, her mind. Just the other day Winehouse got herself into one dilly of a pickle in her hpmeland across the big pond, and what she said made Michael Richard's (Kramer from Seinfeld) racist rant from a few years ago look like a few lines yanked from a Walt Disney film. Her and her husband sat in front of a table filled with an A to Z assortment of pills, booze, and drugs while Winehouse and a friend added racist lyrics to a song that didn't leave anyone out of the picture. Next day, her manager shoved her out of her apartment where a weeping Amy expressed herself with a heartfelt apology. That was it...case closed. Notice how we didn't see Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson hopping on a Virgin Airline flight to London to set her straight! I'd predict some kind of rally or boycott concocted by the two if and when she comes to America on tour. Trouble is, Amy gets so strung out onstage that she passes out halfway through the first song. She wants to quit but by golly, doesn't need any more af that rehab garbage. The 12 step program has 11 steps that will never get stepped on by her. Oh yeah, that crystal meth is some good junk despite the fact you quit eating and lose your teeth. It's almost painful to watch her die a slow, painful death when it would be a lot easier to hang or shoot herself, or slit her wrists. Sad thing is, she probably won't make it to 27 and her music catalog will skyrocket in value just like John Lennon. She IS "The gorl with kaleidescope eyes" that Lennon and McCartney wrote about. Kinda eerie ain't it?

Briefly...

God isn't too happy with any of us! First, some BREAKING NEWS from out of Chicago this past weekend... To be more precise, out the back window. For the first time in many years we got to see one of them twisters they show at the movies, except this one was for real without Helen Hunt and that weird Marine from Weird Science. In the end, it looked like a tornado blew through this newsroom...pardon the pun but, I never thought such a thing would actually happen, By the way, Archie the Pig is still a little spooked but doing fine and eating again. With stock market numbers sinking, gas prices rising by a dime over the weekend, and wars going on in the world, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see The Four Horsemen travelling down the street. If God really is George Burns and still smokes cigars like he did in Oh, God!, he's probably smoking not only stogies but, cigarettes and pipes too. Is it over yet? It's really frustrating the way things are. Nothing like a little dose of another type of reality courtesy of Comcast and VH-1. No luck there either watching Poison frontman Bret Michaels shake his ass in front of some Hooters rejects on Rock of Life. What's with this dope? You know, it still puzzles me how Poison managed to keep it together for 20 years with this guy driving the bus. Kudos to his songwriting but, he should have quit there and let someone else do the singing. Any more out of tune and Slappy White would have "gonged" him. His new alnum is sloppy and the accompanying video looks like it was made on a shoestring. The guy does have a heart of gold though when it comes to charity work for the disabled kids. He doesn't need a tv show to find someone to crawl in bed with...what? Can't he do this on his own? C'mon dude, hang up your cowboy hat and throw away your rose with the thorn and put the videos back! Heck, MTV won't do it. From frustrated I can breath a sigh of relief as the possibility of another Clinton running the U.S. of A. gets postponed for another four years. 60 Minutes did a piece on her campaign and her overall attempt to get inbed with the Press. They showed her "character" develop from a cranky lady in menopause who didn't want to talk to anybody, into a person with a "big heart" noting that after she lost Iowa, she became sort of a "Mother Hen" to female reporters following her around. She wore a happy face when buying and passing out Starbucks to news crews in the snow and cold, and smiled as she encouraged journalists on a plane to "enjoy a piece of peach cobbler" with her. "Try it, you'll like it!" she quipped. This wasn't being kind by any stretch... This was all for show as well as to get her mind off of husband Bill. You see, while she was learning where Crown Point was on the Indiana map, William Jefferson Clinton was a thousand miles away allegedly drinking like a fish and whooping it up with other women. Now that you can be back home and place your husband back on house arrest, quit crying! Use some of the "people skills" you learned on the road and put it to use for $7.00 an hour at Denny's serving up Grand Slams to truckers. If Hillary is one of us common folk, it's time to see what it's like to live from paycheck to paycheck where the boss doesn't bother to ever take the time to stop and thank you for a doing a good job!

Stretched From the Headlines This Week

Operation ESTHR set to debut in midwest very soon. Ottumwa, IA (API) - It's official. Much of the United States already relies on the help of the AMBER ALERT SYSTEM to aide in the search for missing children. Beginning next month, Iowa and portions of Illinois will be benefitting from a new GPS style tracking device called ESTHR or the Emergency Senior citizen Tracking, Help, and Recovery system. "This is just another tool to help find an elderly grandpa or grandma that may get confused or out of touch with their surroundings." says Sherrif Clyde Humpermill of the Picwah County Sherrif's Office. "Hardly a day goes by where we don't get a call about someone wandering around in their pajamas." He says. Similar to the AMBER Alert system, this network pits out a bulletin for the missing elderly. While AMBER is a high priority alert being sent out immefiately to radio and television stations, ESTHR operates differently. "This is considered to be not that high on the list of priorities" according to Humpermill. "If they are located within a half hour or so, that's great. After that, we pretty much call things off for a variety of reasons." For this pilot program, funding is low, resources can't be stretched, and in the end, there really is no bad news either way the outcome. "It may be cruel to say" quips Humpermill. "But, we figure they altready lived a productive life. The animals have to survive too..." he continues, "wild animals enjoy feasting on the carcasses alomg the roadside." Alerts will primarily be given during the middle of the night when the elderly have trouble falling asleep. CBS Television and Sony Pictures have allowed exclusive rights to air these alerts during the reruns of popular syndicated shows such as "Matlock" and "Murder She Wrote".

Got Room? Ed McMahon and maybe even Mickey Mouse may need your help! OK, imagine it's 7 o' clock in the evening and the front doorbell rings. You answer the door and Ed McMahon is standing there without any fanfare, balloons or confetti, and no oversized check. Matter of fact, both his pockets are empty. There's no television cameras, no Dick Clark by his side and certainly no Johnny Carson. Do you let him in, or slam the door shut? Same goes for the popular mouse down in Orlando. Imagine taking a trip to Disney World only to discover the Magic Kingdom is "red tagged" with "No Trespassing" signs amidst a weed infested parking lot. This ain't "TV's Super Bloopers and Practical Jokes" either. Yep, these two are in deep financial doo-doo. Seems as though McMahon is still paying off several ex-wives and suffering from a broken neck injury last year. This 80 something guy can't work and his house is going into foreclosure. Heck, he may become homeless! Mickey on the other hand, shouldn't be eating cheese from the government anytime soon. Although park attendance dwindles to a record low as a result of high gas and travel expenses, the popular rodent should make a clean getaway after collecting revenue from the several upcoming Disney Pictures releases. Don't pull out the violin or sing a sad song for Ed McMahon either. This old man is already hitting the talk show circuit to spin his tale. If bad comes to worse, maybe Jerry Lewis or Dick Clark can help out. Let the Muscular Distrophy Association take a year off and dedicate this Labor Day to Johnny's old sidekick! Afterall, with all the money they make from the gig, where does it go? C'mon! You mean to tell me that after collecting so many millions over the last 40 years that they haven;t found a cure yet?! SOMEBODY is lining their pockets somewhere! Here's another idea... Raffle the old codger off to someone in a weekly lottery. The winner gets Ed McMahon as a houseguest. Feed him, clothe him, and change his diaper as needed. Let the guy leave greetings on your answering machine for callers. Let him introduce your guests as he opens up your front door. For God sakes, don't lrt this legends star burn out in some potter's field with an unmarked grave. Please help him, won't you?

"The worl'd whitest African-American" taking time off to polish act

The Gospel according to Phleger... (note: The following is an excerpt taken from a Phleger sermon delivered last week. Since then, Michael Phleger has been asked to take a leave of absence from his Chicago church by the Archdiosise of Chicago. Such action was taken as a result of comments made regarding Presidential hopeful Sen.,Hillary Clinton. He has been told to no longer mention any of the Presidential candidates by name while awaiting his future.. Meanwhile, judge for yourself!) "What's done is done, my brothers and sisters. I feel baptized. I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT! Listen here and open your ears, We did it! Yessssum. She's glike the old gram ma ma down the road that wore a sweater in the summertime and walked down the street talking to people that weren't there. MESSED UP IN THE HEAD is what she was and then the evil won the battle and won the war and lay her down in the smoldering ashes until the good took over again. The evil that is dead wears a blue pants-suit and breathes fire! When the smoke clears though, just like a phoenix, the new evil rises to fight our black warrior. Only this time, he has a new face. That of an old man in his 70's. This new demon is ready to trick you. He wants you on his side. He wears flashy clothes and a lot of bling with his short, cropped, gray hair. This evil is all you gots? You ain't gonna bring us black soldiers down! Defeating you is like shooting fish in a barrel, or perhaps the cycle of your long life of tom foolery will destroy yourself." And they say religion and politics don't mix well? I beg to differ.