The Gerber Papers

Phillipe & Jorge don't get a scoop like this every day, but we recently received photocopies of the secret diary of prisoner #111056 in a manila envelope. Although these came from an anonymous source and the postmark was Woonsocket and not Cranston, we still have reason to believe that, if not completely authentic, these prison diaries are still a mighty important find. We'll let you, the reader, decide on how valuable these unique musings are:

WEEK ONE: If there's one thing I really regret, it's downing those half-dozen Valiums with a glass of Crown Royal right before going in for that mug shot. What a lousy picture! But I knew, somehow, that the Journal would get its grubby hands on it. They've been unfair during this whole ordeal.

I mean, the truth is that all that money went for the reelection campaigns. I wasn't keeping it, just passing it along to the television people to make the commercials and buy the airtime. And then they're the ones showing up at the courthouse and at the prison and my house and office, acting like a bunch of jackals. Basically, I didn't do anything wrong. I mean, the Jamestown Bridge got built, didn't it? The media just doesn't get it.

And it's not like I was acting like that degenerate Clinton, cadging hum jobs in the Oval Office. At least I had the good sense (and, if I do say, class) to rent a hotel room out of state. I'm not a complete prude, but I think that there's a time and a place for everything.

I do wish they'd learn to cut the crusts off the grilled cheese down in the prison kitchen, though. It's not that I'm a picky eater. In fact, there's one good thing about the prison: they serve the iceberg lettuce in the salad, and I really do prefer iceberg to romaine, arrugula and all that fancy stuff those high-society people like Bruce Sundlun eat. (Sundlun would appreciate the plastic forks here, though.)

I've got to continue to impress upon the immediate family the importance of keeping up that letter-writing campaign to the newspapers. I'll have to remind them to keep it simple. Key points: I'm a great father who would vacation with the whole family in the Winnebago, and I pleaded guilty not because I'm actually guilty but as a great sacrifice for the people of Rhode Island and for Dennis.

WEEK TWO: When the hell am I going to get out of here and go to work?! That was supposed to be the deal. They say it's only a few more days, but I'll have to stay in the office. Geez, they're treating me like such a criminal in here, it might be a good idea to send a little note to Nelson Mandela about the plight of political prisoners.

I think that I could get on his good side quickly by telling him how much I like his shirts. Actually, I think I have a picture of myself standing in the parking lot at Foxwoods and wearing a similar shirt. Just need to remember not to let Nelson know that Paul Manafort used to work on my campaigns. He was working for the other guys over there, after all.

Been watching the beginnings of the impeachment trial on the wide screen TV I have in here. And speaking of cool clothing, I really like those stripes that Justice Rehnquist wears on his robes these days. Maybe the prison establishment here could switch back to the striped motif, as these orange jumpsuits are not only gauche, but they fit poorly and run up the crack of my butt.

And that's not the only thing that would like to run up the crack of my butt here. I keep telling the other guys that I don't go for that soap-drop routine, and they keep hinting about giving them the "executive seal" on their dingalings.

The TV certainly will come in handy, although I still don't have final permission to run that Super Bowl party in my cell. If I do, I think I can get Walt's Roast Beef to provide the food. I'll also need to get some of the guys from Maximum in here in order to get some really good action on the game. That's what Bobo says, anyway.

Christmas balls-up

What a bunch of big babies in the management office at WWBB-FM. They obviously can't take a joke. Your superior correspondents are referring to the station's reaction to a prank played by B101 morning-drive hosts Dario Bruno and Tiffany Hill.

On January 13, the pair aired a story about a new Vo Dilun law requiring residents to take down all their Christmas decorations by noon that day or face a $25 fine. In most other places on the planet, listeners would've realized that this was a patently false story, but here in the Biggest Little, where the moron factor is off the charts (and this includes the General Assembly, which conceivably could enact such a ludicrous law), hundreds of listeners called for more information or to complain. And even Governor Bigfoot's office reported almost 200 calls on the matter.

Fortunately, at least the press wasn't fooled. According to Lisa Pelosi, Bigfoot's press secretary, channels 10 and 6 were not among those early inquirers. (Can't slip anything past the JAR-heads or Number 3, can you?) Overall, though, the station obviously misinterpreted who the guilty parties are in this farce. We say the idiots who bought into the joke are the ones who deserve all the blame -- and not B101's clever and fun-loving employees.

At 10 a.m. that day, program director Al Brock went on the air to apologize ("golly, we're sorry we forced you Mensa members to use your hooves to call to complain"), and handed out one-day suspensions to Bruno, Hall, and the show's producer, sportscaster and gag writer. No doubt, the latter three had the temerity to laugh at the emperor's new clothes, a la the "Biggus Dickus and Incontinentia Buttocks" scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Lighten up, Al. You might actually get some new listeners out of this, people who are tired of the lame-old, same-old crap on other stations.

Rocket scientists

A friend from abroad sent P&J the following e-mail: Scientists at NASA have developed a gun built specifically to launch dead chickens at the windshields of airliners, military jets and the space shuttle, all traveling at maximum velocity. The idea was to simulate the frequent incidents of collisions with airborne fowl to test the strength of the windshields.

European engineers heard about the gun and were eager to test it on the windshields of their new, high-speed trains. Arrangements were made. But when the gun was fired, the engineers stood shocked as the chicken hurtled out of the barrel, crashed into the shatterproof windshield and smashed it to smithereens. Then it crashed through the control console, snapped the engineer's backrest in two and embedded itself in the back wall of the cabin.

Horrified, the Europeans sent NASA the disastrous results of the experiment, along with the designs of the windshield, begging the US scientists for suggestions. NASA's response was just one sentence: "Thaw the chicken."

Kudos and congrats . . .

. . . to Ed "Gerber Baby #111056" DiPrete for ignoring Martin Luther King Day and going to work. Lighten up, Gerb. Like they say, when you're on your deathbed, you won't be thinking you should have worked more days, right?

. . . to General Treasurer Paul "Newman" Tavares (are we wrong, or is he not a Portuguese Wayne Knight look-alike?) and AG Sherbet Whitebread for announcing their intentions to aggressively go after the aforementioned Gerb's pension. Nor should the pension go to his family, a preposterous notion when you think about it -- "Look, Dad, the pension check arrived. Sorry, we're not allowed to give you any of it." Also, we're counting on Sherbet to let his old pals at the state Department of Business Regulation know that if they don't strip Fast Eddie of his license to sell insurance, Whitehouse will embarrass them publicly and make them do so. After all, can you imagine the Gerb on the phone at his insurance office, saying, "You want the combined, full-term package? Sure, give me your money. Yeah, you're covered now. No need for paperwork, just take my word for it." Geez, gives the old line about Tricky Dick Nixon ("Would you buy a used car from this man?") new life in the Biggest Little, doesn't it?

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