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Volume CCXXXV, Number 73    April 19, 2005 

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Looking for advice on managing your, uh, affairs?  Look no further!  America's most embarrassing ex-CEO, unindicted division, is back with more advice, not that any would-be Ken Lays dumb enough to fork over 20 bucks would actually be able to fight their way through 384 pages.

Too bad, because they might learn how to dump your annoying ex-wife for only $400,000,000 so that you could make an honest woman out of CEO groupie Suzy Wetlaufer.  That's what they call in the business world a "win-win."

To tell you the truth, we'd be much more interested in a how-to book penned by No. 2 ex Jane Welch, perhaps "with" her driver, and masseuse, Pane Francesco. From grinding law-firm associate to centimillionaire grandee after only ten years of boinking a gnarly rich guy – talk about riding an old stallion into the winner's circle.

With everyone from the Fenway Park towel boy to the security guard stationed at Ted Williams' freezer pushing books about the Boston Red Sox, it may seem churlish to deny the possibly literate Johnny Damon the right to cash in on the return of the World Championship to Fenway Park after a mere 86-year absence.

It's not like he hasn't had a fascinating life: incredible athletic success an early age, swarms of groupies hanging on every whisker and a recent marriage to the well-constructed Michelle Mangan.  And, in his favor, he kept his mouth shut during the recent electoral unpleasantness, unlike Series Ace turned Republican shill Curt Schilling.

The veteran baseball book reader might, though, find Damon's inside scoop – ya gotta have heart – just a tad familiar. You don't think that long-time baseball hack Peter Golenbock might have put some of the same pearls into the mouths of Billy Martin [He'd have to get the bottle out first – Book Review Ed.], Sparky Lyle and Graig Nettles [Who? – Ed.], all of who, like Damon, have been, uh, immortalized in quickie books churned out by Golenbock?

Let's cut to the ninth.  So do the girls, the fame, the excitement, the tasteful World Series ring and the big bucks make Johnny Damon happy?  You're damned right they do – he's not as dumb as he looks.  Now we've saved you $16.32.

Once-readable popular novelist Michael Crichton joins the ranks of the unreadable with a new potboiler involving a bunch of evil environmentalists trying to take over the world. Their secret weapon? The threat of global warming.

Global warming? According to Crichton, it's a fiction. So what better medium to refute the arguments of master storytellers like the National Academy of Science and the UN Environment Program?

The cool thing, if you'll pardon the expression, about using fiction to refute the arguments of those who cite real evidence in support of their claim that global warming is a real and present threat is that you get to make up whatever facts you want. Environmentalists as the second coming of Auroc Goldfinger? No problem.

Come to think of it, Crichton's not the first to employ make-believe in support of environmental concerns. Just last night, we saw a rerun of Police Squad 2½, which stars Robert Goulet as an evil oil company tycoon intent on suppressing solar and wind power. Talk about fiction! Plus, there's a porn shop proprietress with big yabbos and a tiny top, who greets Lt. Frank Dreben with the question: "Is this some kind of a bust?" And that's more entertainment than you'll get out of State of Fear.