Category: default || By jt3y

It dawned on me this morning as I shuffled back and forth in the kitchen that not only do I have the mind of a crabby old man in his 80s, this damned flu has left me with the body of one. I was walking like Tim Conway used to shuffle around on "The Carol Burnett Show" --- taking tiny sliding steps, hunched over, clutching my carton of orange juice so I wouldn't spill it from my shaking hands.

Being sick always leads me to have goofy dreams. I woke up convinced that my neighbor two doors down was draining her swimming pool into my back yard, causing it to sink. Because that's what I had been dreaming about; I dreamt that I had looked out the kitchen window and found the back yard filled with water, and when I went downstairs, the neighbor had routed a hose from her pool directly into my yard.

I went inside to fetch a camera, but I couldn't find one, and by the time I got back outside, the neighbor had hidden the pool.

Can you think of a dumber, more pointless dream? I doubt it. Other highlights of last night's somnolent million-dollar movies include a dream in which I was stacking cans of paint --- no particular reason, just stacking cans of paint --- and one in which I was either a private investigator or a crook. I'm not sure which.

Isn't it bad enough that my life is dull? Do my fever-ridden fantasies have to be dull, too?

...

Some crafty vandals in Hornell, N.Y., have changed the "Welcome" sign at the town's entrance to proclaim that it's the "Home of Alfred E. Newman." It previously said it was the home of ... wait for it ... Bill Pullman.

Hornell, N.Y.'s so proud of being the hometown of Bill Pullman that it put it on the "Welcome" sign? Speaking of "dull," that's it.

Hell, Our Fair City was the hometown of Murph the Surf, but you don't see us making a big deal out of it.

...

I don't know much about smut, but I know what I like. Ahem.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster threw out obscenity charges filed in Pittsburgh against a California porno peddler. The Bush administration's Justice Department has been filing these kinds of cases in Western Pennsylvania in the hopes that the jury boxes will be filled with little old ladies wearing babushkas who will be shocked, shocked! at the filth on display.

They don't know what lurks behind the pale exteriors of those studabubbas, but I digress.

Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix explains how Lancaster turned conservative philosophy on its ear in his ruling:

And if Lancaster is upheld, you can send your thank-you cards to Supreme Court justices Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas.

You may recall that, a few years ago, the three conservatives dissented in Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned anti-sodomy laws. Scalia --- who actually wrote the dissent --- fumed that the majority decision could pave the way for obscenity laws to be overturned as well. It turns out that Lancaster read Scalia's dissent and agreed. Wrote Lancaster:

"In a dissenting opinion joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, Justice Scalia opined that the holding in Lawrence calls into question the constitutionality of the nation's obscenity laws, among many other laws based on the state's desire to establish a 'moral code' of conduct.... It is reasonable to assume that these three members of the Court came to this conclusion only after reflection and that the opinion was not merely a result of over-reactive hyperbole by those on the losing side of the argument."

You've got to love the way that Lancaster is willing to twist the logical knife into the conservative Supremes.

Lancaster's opinion is a great victory for free speech and privacy. It's also a challenge aimed directly at the right-wing agenda being pursued by George W. Bush's Justice Department.

To quote that great legal scholar Tom Lehrer: "Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!"

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To Do This Weekend Art Space 303, Eighth Avenue in Homestead, presents "Revised," black-and-white photographs by Ryan Gorman. Call (412) 476-0755 ... Hungarian Social Club, Walnut Street at 30th Avenue, holds a Valentine's Day dance at 8 p.m. Saturday, featuring Dorothy & Co. Call (724) 864-0042.