Prickle-Prickle, Confusion 18, 3165"Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care about time?"
- ChicagoSo: It was bound to happen.
I'm being sued.
By several major calendar companies.
For plagiarism.
In fact, I'm charged with plagiarizing every date I've used to open these entries with going all the way back to the start of this journal on May 4.
That amounts to 39 counts of grand theft and one count of pickpocketing (since I consulted a wallet card calendar on May 28).
What's worse, my lawyer thinks I'm gonna lose. She says the moment I open my mouth in court, it'll be obvious that I'm simply not smart enough to come up with the date on my own.
As if I couldn't have actually come up with something much, much more imaginative than "May 4, 1999" or "June 10, 1999" had I given it a moment's thought!
Well, we'll just see who'll outsmart whom when my case goes before the judge on - ummm, well, I better not say.
And for today, anyway, I'll be playing it safe and opening my entry with a date taken from the Discordant Calendar . I'm not sure who's responsible for this alternative system of time tracking, but he or she sure seems to be a kindred spirit who's just as sick of the monopolistic calendar corporations as I am.
That he or she also seems to utterly lack the basic mental skills required to contact a lawyer and sue me had nothing to do with this decision. It's just a happy coincidence, that's all, and if you're thinking of suing me for perjury here, just remember that in my mind, at least, "everything" and "nothing" are virtually synonymous.In other news....
You may have heard that the original script for 1939's "Gone With The Wind" was auctioned off by Sotheby's yesterday for $46,000. Although I'm not at liberty to reveal exactly who bought it, I can say that having spent the last 6 hours scanning the ratty old thing for material worthy of being cribbed for use here, I've given up.
If only I had known before I started that it was about that humorless Civil War of ours!
I just hope that I - I mean, I just hope that the new owner can find some recycling center willing to pay 10 cents/pound for the paper the thing is printed on.
Or maybe some addled movie buff might be suckered into paying a few pennies more.
In truth, a close reading does reveal a few facts about this flick I never knew before. Among them:But never mind. Jester Cat seems to have other uses in mind for this script, and I dare not interfere for fear that he'll testify against me at my upcoming trial.
- The working title was "Scarlett Does Tara."
- The role of Rhett Butler was originally assigned to Peter Lorre.
- Scarlett's "Fiddle-dee-dee!" lines were originally supposed to be delivered as a lispy "Suffering succotash!"
- The burning of Atlanta scenes were to be followed by others in which millions of pounds of butter were applied to the inflamed streets by desperate Confederate doctors.
- Richard Roundtree was supposed to drive up in a TransAm in reel three, just to kick some seriously racist honky butt before disappearing into the night, but he ended up not being born until 1942.
- Rhett's famous closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" was originally written as "Frankly, dear heart, I've always found great solace in euchre."
If $46,000 turns out to have been too much to pay for a single-use scratch post, please don't tell me, ok?
Back To A Simpler Past Home To Await Airdrops Of Good Writing
(All Material Not Currently Tied Up In Litigation © 1999 by the UnGable, Dan Birtcher)
EXTRA-SPECIAL BONUS: My Very First Poll!
In honor of Boris Yeltsin's obvious mastery today
of the remnants of the Russian military, the historic practical joke,
and the ability to not wet himself while laughing up his sleeve,
please take a moment and answer the following question:
Thank you. And if you think the preceding was hopelessly tasteless and cruel, you're right.
I sincerely apologize to all the Russian people.Now if any of the Russian people would like to apologize to me
for tossing the keys to thousands of nuclear missiles
to a senile old drunk
I'm standing by to hear it
from now to Doomsday.
Deposit Apologies Here
