Business as usual - unusual events and measures in various cities - Off the Map - Column

Progressive, The, Sept, 1995 by Will Durst

So the landlord is trying to close down Dr. Kevorkian's clinic. Says he didn't know what it was going to be used for. Yeah, right. Like Jack Kevorkian is going to open the world's most unusual electrical-supplies shop. Turns out it's the kind of clinic where you don't see many cabs lingering outside. Doc's calling it an obitorium. Suicide parlor doesn't have the right marketing ring, I suppose. Love to see his Yellow Pages listing: CHECKING OUT? CHECK US OUT! Just think, if this idea takes off, knowing the American entrepreneurial spirit, independent franchises are going to blossom like mushroom spores after a spring rain in Iowa. Dew Drop Dead clinics will litter the Southern rural scence. Motel 86s and Do Yourself Inns on the edge of town. We could be on the verge of a whole new cottage industry, complete with infomercials starring Leslie Nielsen touting a home do-it-yourself kit, which may be redundant, since if you watch enough infomercials you run the risk of expiring from nausea.

* Mason City, Illinois, which is so truly all-American, small-town picturesque, Norman Rockwell would dismiss it as imperialist propaganda. Pollyanna would be on her knees retching in the gutter.

Can't drive fifty-five? Well, the good news, my bucko, is you don't have to anymore. Congress just passed a law letting individual states determine how fast you are allowed to careen your two-ton steel cocoon down the highway. It'd be easier to find real cartilage in Michael Jackson's nose than anyone doing fifty-five these days. Go ahead, try obeying the speed limit on a major interstate and you risk getting squashed like a small emerging Central American nation with rich oil deposits.

I bet Montana raises the limit to just under the speed of light. Right now, it's only a $5 fine for "fuel consumption" as long as you're less than twenty miles an hour over the limit--even though it costs the state of Montana fifteen bucks to process the ticket. They try every year to raise the price of the ticket to at least the cost of processing. But every year it gets voted down by the state legislature. The best way to handle the Montana highway patrol if they stop you is to tell the guy you're in a hurry to get to Idaho.

* New York City. They say the Devil made both Hell and New York City and he chooses to live in Hell. Who can blame him?

Clinton is trying to preempt next year's expected Republican onslaught with a $2.5 million series of ads depicting himself as Mr. Anti-Crime. The Dark Knight of Arkansas fighting a never-ending battle against Bob Dole (Two Face) and Newt Gingrich (The Riddler). All he needs is for Al Gore to dress up as Robin, and he's guaranteed a $50 million opening-week-end gate. Hope he works out a bit before donning those tights.

* Los Angeles, where the Unabomber claims he was just kidding. A psychopath kidding--does that mean we're all supposed to laugh or else?

Not only did the citizens of Orange County vote down a one-half percent increase in sales tax to avoid repayment of the $1.7 billion its treasurer lost in derivatives speculation, but they also officially designated the ostrich as the county bird. These guys make fruit flies look farsighted.

Turns out "accepting responsibility for one's actions" is a great cheer at diversity conference football games, but not a popular chant when the home team plays. Gets the cheerleaders all confused. The bill to pay the piper was a 61-39 loser in the Reagan homeland. Embarrassed business analysts are writing the vote off as an "atypical conservative myopic disturbance," also known as "blinded by the blight." In a desperate attempt at damage control, local officials reluctantly admit that although Chapter Eleven relief might temporarily alleviate the situation, it's not half as good as just pretending nothing ever happened and going on with business as usual. Which is exactly what they plan to do, after hiring a lobbyist to beg for spare change outside the capitol building.

* San Francisco, where the canceled ABC show called Full House was supposedly set. We were so proud. Right up there with Dan White and the Twinkies Defense.

It seems a bit suspicious that Pete Wilson can't talk. Perhaps he's all chocked up from guilt for having lit the match that set off the firestorm of racism directed against illegal aliens. Or maybe the laryngitis is purely psychosomatic so he doesn't have to answer questions about the illegal alien he, Mr. Prop 187, hired as a maid. Oh, I forgot--he didn't know he had a maid. Let me repeat that. He didn't know he had a maid. Who does, really? Naw, he probably thought the Tijuana road show of Kiss Me Kate was holding rehearsals in his pantry.

Are we supposed to even consider electing someone as President who fails to notice strange women speaking foreign languages vacuuming his walk-in closet? This is the guy who, as senator, wrote the day-laborer legislation that allowed illegals to cross the border to work the fields owned by Wilson's rich buddies. Of course, they were supposed to go home at night. Sure. Who wouldn't crash on the floor to avoid an international commute? I always hesitate asking the question, "Just how dumb do these guys think we are?" because of the answers we seem to give them every November.