The week begins with the public grooming sighting to end all public grooming sightings (literally--you'll not see another such item in this column until 2003). Today's atrocity comes from Hot Tipper Kudzai, who was strolling downtown near Benaroya Hall this afternoon when he saw a sight he'll spend the rest of his life trying to forget. "By the bus stop was a woman with a tremendous cut across her forehead that had been sewn up with stitches. I watched as she reached in her pocket, took out a plastic comb, and began pulling out her stitches with it." As blood streamed down the dazed woman's face, a bystander hollered for an ambulance, and the squeamish Kudzai ran as far away from the carnage as he could possibly get.
··In other disgusting news, today one of the Catholic Church's leading exorcists revealed that Pope John Paul has performed three exorcisms during his 23-year pontificate, casting Satan out of a 20-year-old woman as recently as last September. Reuters reports that the Pope carried out his first exorcism in 1982, and has continued to participate in the controversial devil-expelling ritual--which involves the saying of prayers, the sprinkling of holy water, the laying-on of hands, and the ordering of the devil to beat it--to underline the importance of the ceremony. "He carried out these exorcisms because he wanted to give a powerful example," said Father Gabriele Amorth, who claims to have witnessed countless demon-powered levitations, as well as one woman compelled by Satan to spit up a transistor radio. "He wanted to give the message that we must once again start exorcising those who are possessed by demons."
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19
Speaking of those possessed by demons, today brought day #2 in the trial of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman driven by postpartum depression to drown her five children in a bathtub. Among today's revelations: a replay of Yates' dispassionate call to 911; the testimony of the police officer who first discovered the five drowned kids; and an impromptu fashion show featuring the pajamas worn by the children during their horrific final moments. If all this isn't creepy enough, online news reports about the trial featured a link to www.yateskids.org, a website created by father Russell Yates to honor his five departed kids. Among the morbid attractions: intimate home movies of each of the children ("John's fourth birthday," "Paul's first solids"); a link to the gag order prohibiting Yates from discussing details of the trial; and a deeply unfortunate photo entitled "Noah with Wet Hair," depicting a still-living, two-year-old Noah Yates playing in the bathtub. Andrea Yates has pleaded innocent to two counts of capital murder by reason of insanity.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20
Speaking of the criminally insane: Today the New York Post dished the dirt on Elizabeth Wurtzel, the never-was has-been author of Prozac Nation, who recently shared her thoughts on the Sept. 11 attacks with the Toronto Globe and Mail. "I just felt like everyone was overreacting," said Wurtzel, who experienced the attacks first-hand from her apartment near Ground Zero. "My main thought was: What a pain in the ass." Wurtzel admits she "cried for all the animals left in the neighborhood" after the attack, but as for the 3,000 human victims, "I think I have some kind of emotional block." What Wurtzel lacks in human feeling she makes up for in klunky similes, claiming the towers "fell like water" and "slid like a turtleneck going over someone's head." But Wurtzel's not a complete stranger to humility and good taste: Admitting she'd never dare say such things in the U.S., Wurtzel told her interviewer, "You can't tell people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian."
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21
It seems like only yesterday the FOX broadcasting network, smarting after the debacle of Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire?, promised viewers it would never again indulge in such sensationally vulgar programming. Well, tonight FOX executives took that promise, rolled it in vomit, and crammed it down America's throat with the airing of The Glutton Bowl: The World's Greatest Eating Competition. Sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eaters, the Glutton Bowl assembled an array of "gastronomic athletes" from around to globe to compete for the coveted "champ of the chomp" title. Among the delicacies scarfed by tonight's competitors were hard-boiled eggs, bowls of mayonnaise, sticks of butter, cow tongues, cow brains, and "Rocky Mountain oysters" (better known as bulls' balls). Unfortunately, Last Days was unable to watch more than two seconds of the hideous spectacle, but we did listen to the competition with a pillow held over our face, and for any American still wondering why the rest of the world hates us so goddamned much, tonight's broadcast offered countless reasons, from one athlete's boast about learning to override the messages from his brain telling him to stop eating, to the consumption of more food in two hours than the people of Afghanistan have seen in seven months.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22
Speaking of disgusting: Today brings not one but two hot stories of public urination. The first comes from Hot Tipper Elvira, who was riding the #33 bus over the Magnolia Bridge this evening when a "senselessly drunk and scruffy man" stood up and, to the horror of his fellow travelers, relieved himself all over the bus's floor, sending scores of rush-hour travelers scurrying off the rancid-smelling vehicle to wait for the next, preferably urine-free, Metro. (Good luck.) The second story comes from Hot Tipper Chris, who was "doing some gallery hopping" around Occidental Square this afternoon when he noticed "a rather rotund woman" screaming at "a tourist-type man." Chris reports the lady hollered something along the lines of "You little shit! I'm going to piss on you!", before positioning herself in the center of the square and "slowly and sensuously unzipping her pants and pulling down her drawers." Chris was unable to watch the urination itself, but reports hearing "the mighty Mississippi raging across the brickwork" as he (and the piss-dodging tourist) walked away. Cheers to both Hot Tippers, jeers to both public urinators.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23
Today Reuters reported the unfortunate fact that cocaine makes HIV reproduce 200 times faster than usual, ruining the weekends of countless homosexuals across the nation.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24
The week closes with the heartbreaking story of Delta Dawn. She's 41 and her daddy still calls her baby. All the folks around Brownsville say she's crazy, 'cause she walks downtown with a suitcase in her hand, looking for a mysterious dark-haired man. In her younger days they called her Delta Dawn, the prettiest woman you ever laid eyes on. Then a man of low degree stood by her side and promised her he'd take her for his bride. Delta Dawn, what's that flower you've got on? Could it be a faded rose from days gone by? And did I hear you say he was meeting you here today, to take you to his mansion in the sky?
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