Nyuk, nyuk, and away!

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Marshall Applewhite, head ramrod of the Heaven's Gate religious cult, did bear an uncanny resemblance to Ray Walston, circa My Favorite Martian.

If this were the only TV/film connection in this bizarre saga, it would be weird enough, but the group seemed to take a number of cues from the entertainment industry. After watching the film Cocoon, for instance, members of the cult became convinced that they needed boats to make contact with the alien vessel that would take them to the "Next Level."

Since the Heaven's Gate followers made quite a few connections between pop culture and religious belief, your superior correspondents are surprised no one else has commented on the phenomenon.

Phillipe & Jorge first noticed it as early reports of the tragedy in Rancho Santa Fe revealed that Applewhite was known as both "Bo" and "Do." From here, it's only a short journey to . . . "Moe," the leader of an earlier group of Enlightened Ones, the Stooges.

In fact, Moe, Larry, and the unfortunate Curly Joe DeRita also took a journey to the Next Level 35 years ago in their 1962 feature-length Columbia film, The Three Stooges in Orbit.

Later, as descriptions of the cult's lifestyle and activities filtered out, P&J again were struck by similarities with the Stooges. According to news reports, Heaven's Gate members had to be in pairs at all times, lest an individual become vulnerable to human attachments.

The Stooges were never vulnerable to human attachments either and were rarely seen alone. Hell, they even slept in the same bed. (Like Heaven's Gate members, who practiced celibacy, the Stooges did not appear to be sexually active.)

And did not Moe's co-leader, Curly, pass away prematurely like Bonnie Lu Nettles, Applewhite's co-founder and soulmate, did?

Then we learned that Applewhite and a number of other males in the group had been castrated. This is not that far removed from Moe's frequent threats to "tear out the tonsils" of Larry, Curly, Shemp, or the later two faux Curlys. (In the case of Joe Besser, P&J believe Moe should have acted more decisively on his threat.)

As you can see, there are far too many intersecting points for the Stooge/Heaven's Gate connection to be a mere coincidence. We encourage our readers to investigate this astonishing revelation further. If we don't use it in the column, you, at least, will have material for what will likely be an acceptable subject for a post-graduate dissertation in the colleges and universities of the 21st century.

NBA (National Bigot Association)

Lots of fireworks in the National Basketball Association over ethnic and racial slurs. And we don't mean the trash talking done by the players on the court.

No, in a league whose players are predominantly black -- a league that has as much harmony as any athlete/owners arrangement in pro sports today -- it was naturally up to the white guys in suits to insert their feet into their mouths.

Take John Calipari, the former coach of UMass who is in his first, extremely uncomfortable year with the atrocious New York Nets.

The team is in a state of mutiny over what they consider Calipari's self-centered, rah-rah college-boy sideline antics, but the coach angered everyone even more when he called Nets beat reporter Dan Garcia of the Newark Star-Ledger a "Mexican idiot." (Doubtless this was in comparison to a "Massachusetts idiot.") Garcia naturally took offense and got into a war of words with Calipari.

Johnnie's source of frustration? Garcia had given him a "D" on his team report card in the paper. When Calipari asked him if he thought he was a bad coach, Garcia replied he was, saying he was a "five-year-old coach." Calipari then took the mature route of threatening to punch him out.

Go stand in the corner with the dunce cap on, Johnny.

Then we had Miami Heat radio announcer David Halberstam (no, not that one) weave down the roads of history and say on the air that "Thomas Jefferson would have been proud of that pass from [John] Crotty."

Crotty is a white guard who used to play for Virginia, the school Jefferson founded. "When Thomas Jefferson was around, basketball wasn't invented yet, but those slaves working at Thomas Jefferson's farm, I'm sure they would have made good basketball players," said Halberstam.

Yep, Dave, and they were probably damn good dancers, too. Perhaps it's time to renew that subscription to American Heritage that you seem to have let lapse.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. Calipari was fined $25,000 and Halberstam, $2500, by NBA commissioner David Stern, a rich Jew. (It's joke -- lighten up.)

High on the hog

BeloJo columnist Bob Kerr pretty much said it all in his column on Monday about Johnston town council president Joseph R. Ballirano's trip to the Super Bowl. Ballirano, you see, was the guest of a man whose name is synonymous (in so many ways) with "Pig Farm" -- Louis Vinagro.

The problem is that "Vinagro" is also synonymous with "town vendor," to the tune of $37,000 a month. That's how much the town pays Vinagro for his trash hauling and recycling services. Oh well. What else is new in Johnston?

While Kerr's piece succinctly pointed out the problem here (i.e., what the rest of the world refers to as a conflict of interest and what is known in Vo Dilan as "duhhh"), we think he missed an obvious question -- why would anyone want to go

to the Super Bowl with Louis Vinagro in the first place?

Phillipe & Jorge put such a venture on the same list as spending a week at the beach in Hawaii with Ralph Reed or, even worse, hitchhiking to Mardi Gras with Phil Terzian.

Fine copy

It looks like the Providence Urinal is shrinking more than its staff since publisher Stephen "I got mine!" Hamblett sold it down the river to Dallas.

P&J were enjoying a lovely brunch and perusing the Sunday papers at the Jamestown Oyster Bar last weekend when we overheard a couplefrom out of state talking about the BeloJo's comics section.

"Oh, look at this. You can't even read these things, they're so small," the woman exclaimed, tossing it on an empty seat. Ever ready to defend The Other Paper's honor, P&J checked our own copy's funnies and couldn't argue.

Anyone with slightly less than 20-20 vision would not have been able to read Doonesbury in its reduced size. (Boy, lucky it's not a popular strip. That's no doubt why Cathy still runs full size.)

Knowledge-seekers always, P&J measured the Urinal's Doonesbury against the Boston Globe's version. The former was 4x8 inches, while the ran as creator Garry Trudeau had intended -- 8 x12 inches. Much better to read the captions by, my dear. Hey, at least BeloJo was able to cram the terribly unfunny Dave in because of the space saved.

Meanwhile, in the sports section we see that the creativity-challenged Web wonk Art Martone, the BeloJo's assistant sports editor, has fashioned a World Wide Web baseball site for the paper. His name for it? "Off the Wall." You mean like "On the Ball and Off the Wall," the title of the Phoenix's sports column by Chip Young? Since Young has used this signature in print and on radio for 20 years, we're sure that Art's imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.

A man of the people

Phillipe and Jorge were shocked last week to learn of the sudden death of Richard Casparian, head of the state Public Defender's office. We had the good fortune to meet Casparian a few years ago and to talk to him at length about his job -- defending people who couldn't afford an attorney.

Casparian's mission often saddled him with some of the worst offenders the state had to offer, such as Michael Everett Woodmansee, murderer of five-year-old Jason Forman.

While crimes of this nature flew in the face of all Casparian held dear, his commitment to providing equal justice to all helped him become one of the finest attorneys a client could ever hope for. The beauty of it was he worked for his clients for free.

Casparian's compassion and concern were impossible to miss. We hope the inspiration he offered his employees will be passed on to the next generation of public defenders. We've lost quite a human being.

---

The P & J archive

---