Photo by Jack GouldConfronted by his chops-licking Republican presidential challengers, surprising third-place Iowa finisher Alan “Puffy” Keyes broke down on Jan. 26 and admitted that, yes, he really did dive into a mosh pit. During a New Hampshire debate, GOP front-runner George Dubya Bush asked Keyes, who flung himself into the crowd at a campaign rally days earlier, “What's it like to be in a mosh pit?” Had he known he was being set up, Keyes might have replied, “Great! What's it like to snort crank out of a hooker's ass?” Instead, Keyes said he enjoyed it, leading ferret-faced, right-wing attack dog Gary Bauer to accuse Keyes of condoning the “anti-family, anti-cop and pro-terrorist” views of the band whose music was playing during the moshing. “It's the kind of music that the killers at Columbine High School were immersed in. I was a little surprised to see you fall into a mosh pit while a band called the Machine Rages On or Rage Against the Machine played,” scolded oh-so-hipster Bauer. That set Keyes off (like that's hard to do) on a long, rambling diatribe about mosh-pit morality, trust, dignity, brotherhood, neckties and —natch—slavery. John McCain ground what's left of his teeth, and Steve Forbes looked as if he was holding in a monster fart. Again.
YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WINNER State Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Jan. 24 revealed he is suing Publishers Clearing House for allegedly misleading prize promotions. In making the announcement, Lockyer's office disclosed that an elderly Orange County woman, who apparently believed she was in line to win millions from the sweepstakes company, spent more than $50,000 of her savings for largely unnecessary magazine subscriptions and other purchases. On the upside, the young couple who moved into Grandma's house after the foreclosure sale couldn't get over the wonderful smell left by all those magazine perfume samples.
CLEAN SLATE An Oakland teacher was suspended on Jan. 24 after forcing a 5-year-old girl to lick a chalkboard. Defenders of a Reagan administration policy that deemed ketchup a vegetable in federally funded school lunches immediately came forward to tout the nutritional value of chalk. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Jan. 27 that nearly 10 percent of all middle-school-aged kids are smoking cigarettes. Poor little bastards are probably hoping tobacco can get the taste of chalk out of their mouths.
WEB OF DECEIT State Senator Bill Morrow (R-San Juan Capistrano), who is seeking the Republican nomination for the 48th Congressional District seat held by the soon-to-retire Ron Packard, blew the lid off the race on Jan. 27 when he announced that challenger Darrell Issa is a dirty, stinkin' liar. As recently as Dec. 1, 1999, Issa's Web site included a pledge that he would not run for office in 2000. “I'm too busy! As for after the turn of the century, we'll see,” wrote Issa, who lost the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate to Matt Fong in 1998. “This is another interesting example of Mr. Issa's flip-flops and evasions,” reacted Morrow spokesman Damon Elder. “Now the voters can be deceived by Darrell Issa in the convenience of their own homes.” Why would Camp Morrow go on the offensive? Because two days earlier, The Orange County Register reported that two politicos Morrow listed as supporters denied they had endorsed him in the primary. Who do you suppose tipped off the Reg?
I SEE A FOOD STAMP IN YOUR FUTURE New York City is training welfare recipients to be telephone psychics, The New York Times reported on Jan. 28. Considering ex-Orange County Treasurer Robert Citron admitted he received investment advice from psychics before the county's $1.64 buh-buh-billion bankruptcy in 1994, Clockwork hereby nominates him for the Big Apple's top financial post.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
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