Walter Payton Is Friggin' Dead-- And Other Profane Observations

original print date, November 12 1999

.....Yes, Walter is long gone. Yet I am still here, typing on a computer at 4:37 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, all because I waited until the last minute. You can call me lazy if you want, but hey, sometimes the best humor is written at 4:37 a.m. PST when the person on the computer next to you smells like crap.
.....Just to move things along, I'd like to point out some other obvious facts that were candidates for the title of this piece: "People who talk to themselves in computer labs never get any- and other observations," "St. Scholastica: worse at hockey than Michael Jordan is at baseball- and other shockingly accurate observations," and "Sometimes I mix up Bob Denver and John Denver, and then my mom gets pissed- and other things you didn't want to know about my family." Now for the news, starting with news clip #1 and followed by news clip #2:
.....Here at UWS, where activism is deader than a horse owned by Elmer's Glue, students happily slept in while the rest of the state's college students walked out of classes to protest tuition increase. It was sad that we didn't participate, though it should be noted that it's not really possible to have a walkout when no one goes to class anyway. We're a liberal arts college, which means we get paid to be "creative," which actually means we're lazy, which actually means we sleep until 4 p.m., wake up and drink, and then puke on the carpet and turn it in as our art project.
.....The other day I went to my local neighborhood quickie mart and watched as the man in front of me bought a "choco taco," two "banana flips" and a 40 of Budweiser. That's about the point that I realized I live in a bad part of town.
.....That was news clip #2. I wrote news clip #2 while eating Triscuits.
.....While watching television on that same non-eventful white trash day at the quickie mart, I got to thinking, and decided to write up a few reasons why newspapers are better than television:

---Newspapers don't have ads for maxi pads with diagrams showing "how it flows" (and thank God for that).
---Newspapers leave black ink all over your hands, which is fun to go wipe on somebody else.
---In a newspaper, you don't have to see the reality of how ugly the people bringing you the news really are (and please don't send me letters telling me which newscasters you think are cute-- upchuck like that just makes me want to die).

.....Speaking of ugly people, let's talk about my high school. Sometimes, when I'm feeling low and nothing seems to cheer me up, I like to think about all the blunted, butt-faced, backward halfwits that attended my high school. I have here a listing of where all my classmates (besides me) went to college. Observe:

University of Minnesota-5 (people)
Wisconsin-Eau Claire-3
Local Community College-97
Minnesota School of Bartending-500
Dropped Out and Were Shot While Resisting Arrest-127
Quebec School of Drag Racing-1,567.3

.....Now granted, my high school only had 350 seniors, but keep in mind that these numbers are not actual people, like listed, but are instead percentages. Now granted, there's no such thing as 2,299.3%, but keep in mind that these numbers are not actual percentages, but are instead Roman numerals written in Hispanic Hebrew. Now Granted, there's no such language as Hispanic Hebrew, but keep in mind that I can't even speak English all that well-like, so how am I supposed to know what a language like Hispanic Hebrew sounds like?
.....That's about it for this time, but be sure to watch for our next issue, when I write an entire column without using the word "and." Also make sure to give a big cheer to our UWS men's hockey team for beating the living bejeezus out of the Elmira players in the brawl Saturday night- you know you loved it. And then also please notice that this last sentence I'm writing starts and ends with the word "and." Thank you.