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DTH Omnibus Page 3
Thursday September 21, 1989
Xv:-N:v:-:-:-:4-:-::'S
AV WiHIATT
Who cares about the fourth Banana Split?
I can't set out of my ! math requirement
First of all, I just want to say that
it was not my fault.
My usually reliable research
assistant let me down last week and
gave me the wrong names of the Ba
nana Splits. I know, I know. I let this
research assistant have it with both
fists and then fired this person before
something else went wrong. I'm re
ally sick of these incompetent people
thinking they can get away with second-rate
work and then leaving it to
me to take the flak. I just won't stand
for it. I won't.
For the correction, Bingo and
Fleagle were right, but Drooper was
a lion in Vuarnets, and the elephant
who never said anything was Snorky.
Thuiks to Alan McGee and Mike
"the video veg" for the corrections.
Also, Mike, Racer X was Speed's
older brother Rex. I'm tired of all
these printer's mistakes showing up
in my column.
Editor's note: He hasn't got a re
search assistant, he never has had a
research assistant, and they weren't
printer's mistakes. He's just lost too
This one's
You might remember my little
cousin Wilbur, who lives in a
cardboard box down on
Jackson Street and only has one nos
tril. He was born that way, but we
didn't notice it till he was four years
old. Otis Leakey was visiting one day
from Paducah, Kentucky, and he said,
"Have yall looked at Little Wilbur
lately?" And we said, "What?" and
he said, "Have yall looked at Little
Wilbur lately? You know, you ought
to get that boy checked." Otis couldn't
put his finger on it, but he knew
something was wrong with Wilbur's
face. And so we took Wilbur to the
doctor and sure enough, he was miss
ing one nostril. We probly never
would of known about it if Otis hadn't
come to visit that year. .
Anyhow, that's beside the point.
The point is that we've been trying
to get Little Wilbur to get a good
paying job for several years now, but
Wilbur is what you call your chroni
cally unemployed. It's partly due to
discrimination against the partial
nosed population, but I think it's cause
of Wilbur's own attitude.
"I don't have to work," he'll tell
you. "I have a handicapped sticker."
It's true. Wilbur wrote off to the
Texas Department of Motor Vehicles
and got himself a handicapped sticker.
He wears it on his forehead.
"Wilbur, just cause you're handi
capped doesn't mean you have to sit
around on Jackson Street all day being
pitiful. You could at least volunteer
for the Special Olympics or some
thing." ,
John Bland
i?- iiM pf lfM
many brain cells.
Speaking of early Alzheimer's dis
ease, I made a friendly visit to Steele
Building recently to calmly and ra
tionally present my case as to why I
should be released from the General
College math requirement.
I felt afterwards that I had made
positive progress in the negotiations,
but I don't think I really needed to
be billy-clubbed into submission. I
wasn't planning on actually using that
grenade.
As all of you know, students are
required by the General College to
a) take four semesters of a foreign
language and one semester of math;
b) take three semesters of a foreign
language and two semesters of math;
or c) take the bus home.
So far, I'm angling for that third
option.
better than 'Return
Joe Bob Briggs
"I earned this nostril," Wilbur told
me, "and I'm gonna use it."
Besides, two years ago we tried to
put Little Wilbur in the Special Olym
pics, but they said he was the only
single-nostriled person they'd ever had
and they didn't have anybody to
compete against him.
"That just shows you," he said, "the
prejudice of the full-nosed popula
tion at large."
I told Wilbur it would be differ
ent if his nostril got shot off in Viet
nam or something, but he was a natu
ral one-nostril man and so ... .
"There are plenty of cocaine-head
Hollywood producers with nostrils
worse than mine!" he interrupted.
They could have put them in the
Special Olympics."
"Wilbur, cocaine-head Hollywood
producers can't use a table fork, much
less a discus."
Wilbur snorted.
"Please don't do that again," I told,
hem. "That's the one thing you can
do that grosses me out."
- "You seer Wilbur said. "It's be
cause I have one nostril, isn't it? If
anybody else had a cold, as I have at
this very moment, you wouldn't say
anything, would you? But when it's a
handicapped person .. ."
"Wilbur," I said.
"Yes," he sniffled.
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See, as Caesar had Brutus, as Na
poleon had Waterloo, as Fred
Flintstone had Arnold the paperboy,
I have math. The stuff just don't make
no sense to me. I'm an English ma
jor, I'm not going to need this stuff
when I'm perusing "Absalom, Absa
lom" or "Archie" comics.
Unfortunately, my pleas for math
leniency have thus far fallen upon
deaf ears. Take this exchange from
my first encounter with the admini
stration: "I can't get it! I just don't know
how to do math! Calculus? I can't
hardly spell calculus! Math 1 ? I flunked
it! Math 2? Ditto! Maths 3 and 4?
Ditto ditto! Please, you've got to re
lease me from that requirement! I'll
do anything, anything, just please don't
throw me in that there briar patch!"
"Well, then," said the little old
lady behind the counter at Steele
after my third unsuccessful attempt
at blowing up the building, "have
you tried completing the foreign lan
guage requirement?"
I wanted to bust that little old
lady's glasses.
- "I don't care haw many nostrils
you have. I don't care whether you're
handicapped or not and, by the
way, take that sticker off your fore
head, it's annoying the least you
could do is work the check-out line
at Kroger's." "
"Do you know what people would
do in a grocery store check-out line
the first time they saw a one-nos-triled
person?"
"Check out?"
They would laugh! They would
whisper! They would turn away! They
would make their children go to an
other line! They would . . . ."
I guess it was about then that I
smacked Wilbur right in the . . .
well, I guess you know where I
smacked him.
He'll be out of the hospital this
week.
Maybe the carnival has something.
And speaking of mutated human
flesh attempting to be taken seriously,
the best drive-in movie of 1989 came
out this week "Mutant on the
Bounty," the engrossing (and gross
ing) story of a horribly mutilated
saxophone player who's rescued from
a freefall through outer space by a
ship full of bored singles-bar rejects.
Meet the Hawaiian-shirted Skipper,
his stuttering first mate, the trans
vestite droid Lizardo, and the ador
able chain-moking nymphomanic
doctor who performs open-brain sur
gery with a pair of scissors. This wacky
crew takes in the sax-playing mutant
and tries to make him forget his troub
les - namely, that his face now looks
When fulfilling the foreign lan
guage requirement, don't be stupid
and place into French 3 like I did. I
still don't know how it happened. AH
I can remember about the test is that
it took place real early in the morn
ing during C-Tops and that I was
humming along to the theme from
"Mission: Impossible." I'm convinced
someone mixed mine up with some
one named "Jacques." Either that or
there was one hell of a curve on that
sucker.
That fall I went to class and tried
to figure out just what my teacher
was saying, which is kind of like trying
to stop a lawnmower with your feet.
(Why do French people insist upon
talking so fast? Is it a genetic thing?
No wonder they're uptight. Nobody
knows what the hell they're saying.)
"Monsieur Bland," my French
teacher would begin. "Voulez-vous blah
blah blah blah" and then she'd get to
talking about as fast as a blender stuck
in the "puree" mode and I'd usually
give my standard response, the same
one that got me through a trip to
France in the ninth grade:
of the Living Dead'
like a can of Raviolios, and a couple
of intergalactic Seven-Eleven robbers
named Rick and Manny are coming
to point ray guns at him and giggle a
lot. What's the point? the same points
as every outer-space movie for the
last thirty years will the universe
be destroyed by the virus that only
they know about?
There have been several attempts
at outer-space comedy before, but this
one is the champeen. Kyle T. Heff
ner, as the deformed but good na
tured Max the Mutant, gives the best
performance, of the year by a man
who picks dead skin off his face in
every scene.
Remember when "Return of the
Living Dead" first came out, and we
all knew it was gonna be a classic,
but it took everbody three years to
figure it out?
Four dead bodies. One dead droid.
One pus-faced mutant. Open-brain
laser surgery: Gooey objects removed
from cranial cavity in closeup. One
giant outer-space rubber dart gun.
Face-frying. Exploding spaceship.
Excellent Freddy Krueger ripoff voice.
Aardvarking. Mutant aardvarking.
Gratuitous Hawaiian shirt. Gratui
tous baby blue tuxedo shirt. Toilet
Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nomi
nations for John Fleck, as the droid
who switches between- the personal
ity of a transvestite stripper and a
Nixon Administration press secre
tary; John Durbin, as Manny the
goofball sidekick of the standup
comedian armed robber, for his love
of puff weasels; Deborah Benson, as
"Je ne sais pas."
For all I know, she could've been
asking me about the average rainfall
in the Congo Basin, in which case
my answer would have been right.
Then again, she could've been ask
ing me what "two plus two" was, in
which case my answer would have
been right. And besides, it was in
French.
After struggling through a semes
ter and ending up with a grade some
where lower than a D-minus but
higher than an F, I realized that al
though I had passed, there was no
way in hell I was gonna take another
French class in my life. It's up to
math to get me through (help).
What am I to do, then? Do I take
math and flunk, or do I take French
and flunk? Will I spend the rest of
my natural life wandering around
campus, mumbling basic theorems
and past-imperfect participles? Am I
doomed to a degree-less life because
I can't translate "My pencil-box is
blue"?
Naaaah 'cause I'm gonna be
the next Burt Reynolds.
the dippy reporter whose idea of
cheering up a man who's had his
face fried off is a little tic-tac-toe, for
saying "Could we just turn out one
more light r'; Victoria Catlin, as the
nympho chain-smoking surgeon, for
saying "Don't die on me now, you
son of a beech" in a dimwit French
accent; Scott Williamson, as Rick
the intergalactic convenience-store
robber, for having the world's most
obnoxious giggle and saying "Out
there, somewhere, is a very very very
unlucky saxophone player"; Kyle T.
Heffher, as Max the Mutant, for say
ing "first they mutilate me, then they
lose my luggage. I don't think I'm
even gonna get credit for my Fre
quent Hyer miles" and "Even if I
didn't look like I was bobbing for
French fries, I'd be thrilled to be with
you"; and Robert Torrence the pro
ducer, director and co-writer, who's
already planning a sequel called
"Seven Brides for Seven Mutants."
Four stars. Joe Bob says check it
out twice.
Joe Bob Policy
' OK, OK, we're running Joe Bob 5
. this week. Happy? Good. Here's the
deal: We'U try to run Joe Bob every
: issue, but our primary commitment
is to student writers (no, contrary ;
i to popular opinion, Joe Bob is not a
student here; he lives near Dallas,
Texas), so we may boot him off the
page once in a while if we have a
good guest column. Enjoy!