Opinion

Untitled Document He made a get-by living, writing crime stories and science fiction for magazines before the booze killed his promise. He was nearly broke when an editor friend tossed him a bone: Write a kid story, early-teen stuff, 650 or 700 words, filler, $300. He knew nothing of kid stories, except that they had […]

Untitled Document The reporter is one smart dude, and his questions will be hard-hitting — so I hire a public-relations expert to help me spin the answers. Reporter Luke is well prepared: He has two pages of questions listed in his notebook. Each question is followed by plenty of blank space for notes — excellent […]

Untitled Document Before Dave Barry, the Miami Herald columnist, decided that he had enough money and went to live on the Internet, now and then he’d compose a list called “16 (or 20, or 25) things it took me over 50 years to learn.” The lists are well worth your time; Dave Barry is a witty […]

Untitled Document When you reach Medicare age, they send you an official paper informing you that you are entitled to one free and complete medical checkup. A friend of mine — we’ll call him Andy — scheduled his doctor appointments bottom to top: He started with a podiatrist and worked his way up, nine “ologists” all […]

Having solved the Chief Illiniwek problem [see “Solving Chief Illiniwek,” Aug. 18], Yanks Avatar, Tom “Snorts” Sullivan, and Father “Frog” O’Malley have now decided to address the more important University of Illinois sports problem — that the Illini do not win national championships. “National championships,” of course, refers to football and basketball, because other sports […]

I am strong! I fear only soy milk and . . . kidney stones. I’m in and out of sleep here, and someone named Judge Judy has just sentenced me to death! She holds court above me. I stand alone, down below, trying to explain my side of a legal conflict concerning a shirt mangled […]

Untitled Document You leave home for your cousin’s wedding. En route, you are grabbed by armed men, blindfolded, shoved into a truck, and moved to a storage tank with so many others that your captors shoot into the tank so that some of you can breathe. The unlucky ones are killed by the bullets. Or […]

Untitled Document I need to rent a woman for Ben DeFray — nothing sexual intended; no domestic duties; no companionship required; no relationship need exist at all. All she has to do is stop by once a week, look at him, and force him to go to a doctor — when he needs medical attention. […]

Where once they were brightly colored, they were all pastel now — all soft, all weak hues. They lived in pastel houses and slept in pastel beds. They ate pastel food, drank pastel drink. They thought pastel thoughts and spoke the day’s news in pastel words. Joyce Hampton had been doing the Channel 6 weather […]