Friends Fear Advocate Is Anorexic

The Great Not-so-big Story

Shocked by its thin, gaunt frame and sallow appearance, readers privately expressed concern that The Advocate might be suffering from advanced stages of anorexia.

“My god, it’s like a skeleton,” said James Arledge, an Old Goodwood resident, picking up a recent Saturday edition from his driveway. “I begged and pleaded for the paper to seek medical help. Somebody’s got to do something. I need my stock quotes, because I don’t know how to use The Google.”

Elsie Cranfield shook her head in horror after retrieving a paper from the Walgreens on Government Street.

“It’s society just out of control,” Cranfield said. “If The Advocate’s not anorexic, it’s either bulimia or drugs. My sister-in-law nearly died from Dexatrim.”

Unless the paper seeks help, she said, the town will be kept in the dark about the Garden Society and Republican Women.

LSU Study: Non-Christians Live in BR

In a stunning report released in March, two LSU researchers claim that entire non-Christian subcultures exist in Baton Rouge.

Moreover, the number of Jews, Muslims, and Hindus, among other exotically named groups, totals “more than just a handful of the city’s population,” according to the report.

Anthropologists Melvin Cohen and Yousef Ibrahim admitted their two-year study did not actually locate “extra-Christians” in Baton Rouge. But the researchers cited indirect evidence of at least eight distinct, non-Christian, cultural groups within parish lines. The list might be longer, they said, if atheists and Latinos are included.

Other university researchers quickly cast doubt over the findings, however, saying that if they do exist, non-Christian groups in Baton Rouge are inconsequentially small.

McCollister Challenges Entire City to Fight

After another month in which the goddam media just wouldn’t leave Governor Bobby Jindal alone, publisher Rolfe McCollister threatened to “throw down” with the entire city in an obscenity-laced and impromptu news conference near the Baton Rouge Business Report’s new offices.

McCollister issued his challenge on the sidewalk outside of New York Bagel Co. with a half-empty, 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor in hand.

“Y’all are bullsh–t! Every one of you,” McCollister yelled to passing motorists on Old Hammond Highway. “I got my own paper, and I’ll kick all y’all’s asses.”

He then ripped off his shirt to reveal a “Thugz 4 Life” tattoo emblazoned across his abdomen. Associates whisked McCollister away, however, before he took any questions or the police arrived.

Guirard Next LSU B-Ball Coach?

Facing possible disbarment, high-profile Baton Rouge attorney E. Eric Guirard confided in friends last month that he will apply to become LSU’s basketball coach.

If he does apply, Guirard faces a tough battle. In his first year in Baton Rouge, Trent Johnson led the Tigers to a regular-season SEC championship and the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and he garnered SEC Coach of the Year honors.

Nevertheless, one friend, who asked not to be identified, said Guirard has developed impressive expertise after years of watching Tiger games in person.

“Eric’s had season tickets since, like, forever,” the friend said. “He always tells us what defense the teams are running and the shots LSU should have taken.”

This Month’s Guest Columnist:
Garland Greene – The Marietta Mangler

There’s not enough sex and violence in the mainstream media.

When I was a kid, I got a chubby watching Charlie’s Angels or The Love Boat. And when I got back from summer camp before the seventh grade, I couldn’t wait to use those tingly body parts with other girls once I got out of the halfway house.

Not anymore. Any cable-TV movies we’re lucky enough to get in the Joint are so edited down for content, you don’t get to see sexy women until the commercials. And even then, there’s barely any partial nudity unless you catch a jeans ad late-night on MTV.

And local news … give me a break. Whatever happened to the days where “if it bleeds, it leads”? Hey, Mr. News Director, put that sassy little female reporter in a low-cut, see-through number and fishnet stockings with six-inch pumps, and then let her cover last night’s big thunderstorm. Or maybe give us behind-the-scenes footage of a catfight that broke out when the sassy reporter got her story bumped back to the 10 p.m.

The newspaper needs one, big section with all the sex-related stories in it. If you’re trying to spice up your pages for advertisers, you got something there.

Instead, you spread these tiny little items all over the paper. Geez, sometimes they’re no bigger than a paragraph in a story because an editor wasn’t quick enough to take it out.

Give the people what they want. At least give the people on Cell Block H12 what they want: scantily clad, nubile bodies popping up out of swimming pools or more commercials for “Girls Gone Wild” videos. We’ve got to wait until 10 p.m. before they start showing up anymore, and it’s lights-out at 10:15. And even then, they put a big black box over the money shot.

This whole industry is headed for hell in a basket if we don’t get more naked cheerleader tug o’ war competitions in prime-friggin-time.

“Off the Wire” Corrections

In return for Bobby Jindal’s endorsement, Lee Domingue offered the governor a really sweet deal on a 2006 Nissan Maxima, not a 2005 Honda Civic.

“Off the Wire” regrets the error.

Our conclusion of a correlation between the days on which school cafeterias serve spinach and the mowing of campus lawns was based on incorrect data.

“Off the Wire” regrets the error.

After receiving a litany of complaints over our recent column in which we suggested any movie could be shown at a Jewish film festival, the editorial staff has determined the column was inappropriate.

“Off the Wire” regrets the error.

Coming Next Month

Metaphor chosen for La. Legislature.