Letter to Michael Sneed of the Sun-Times, RE: Ex-Gov. George Ryan

Ziz-ziz-ziz-ziz...

Can you hear that? Those are the sounds of violins playing while my heart breaks over nouveau-poor ex-Gov. George Ryan.

Poor George. Essentially broke. Poor Tura-Lura-Lynn. Only eligible for $350 per month in Social Security, since she lived the life of a fatcat wife and only did volunteer work. Ziz-ziz-ziz...

But I know plenty of women who work full-time AND manage to do charity work as well. I notice that Tura-Lura still has enough money to run to the hairdresser and get her cotton candy dyed blond. Then white, to garner sympathy. Then blonde again.

If George is so worried about being broke now, perhaps he should have hoarded more of that cash he extorted from the cleaning staff at Christmas time. Anyway, isn't he able to live on $77 a year? Oh, retirement will be a piece of cake for him! Especially with free lawyers and now, courtesy of the state, free room and board. Besides, I'm sure those people he saved from death row will be real nice to him. They might even give him their dessert!

Maybe you should save your sympathy for the people of Illinois who got screwed. Or better yet, for Scott and Janet Willis, whose six kids died in a horrible fiery car accident caused by an unlicensed trucker whose kickback to Ryan allowed him to be driving in the first place.

Ziz-ziz-ziz...

Dead Ringers

Is it just my imagination or is David Lee Roth beginning to look like Donald Trump?

(He REALLY should have kept the long hair. Even if he would have looked like some old hobo when it went bald on top eventually.)

So, is one of them going to shoot the other one? And take his place? And then answer nosy questions from Karl Malden and Peter Lawford, like in that Bette Davis flick?

The Internal Monologue of the SUV Owner

Look at it. Isn't it shiny? It's more than just transportation, you know. It's a point of pride for most drivers. Especially men. We've all heard it said that men view their cars as an extension of their penises. Well, that's just ridiculous. It's not an extension at all--it's a substitute.

But who needs a penis when you have one of these, huh? Huh? Just look at that paint job. No, don't touch it! One scratch costs more than it would take to send your pathetic children to college for four years. Just look and admire. You ARE admiring, aren't you? Good gracious, you'd better be. This is all I have in life. I sacrificed everything for this. I have no children. I had to sell them to Michael Jackson to buy this sucker.

And I need it! I never know when I'll be called on to haul lumber in downtown Chicago. And that 4-wheel drive will come in very handy if I'm ever cross-country mud riding. In downtown Evanston. It will also be very useful if I'm ever moving furniture. Not that I have furniture. I had to choose between furnishing my condo and buying this. But I can use it to haul all my friends around! Except that I have no friends. I neglected them in order to spend more time detailing the car. Not that they can stand me anymore anyway. After I kept yelling at them not to drink their Starbucks in my car, because one spill was worth more than all the blood in their bodies, they went off me--strange, isn't it? Some people are so touchy.

So now, I have to spend all my time amusing myself by wedging into parking spaces that are inappropriately small, then snickering at the people who try to park in the paltry and meager spaces I've left on either side of my house-on-wheels. Then I wait for their doors to merely touch the side of my car as they try to get out, and I roll the windows down and yell at them. Such fun! I feel so important. Good times, good times...

I hope someday, I can coax my SUV into the air. Then I can look down on the streets of Chicago with distain from my perch on the top of the world, where I belong.

And then you can tell everyone that pigs can finally fly...