The 2000 Bum Steer Awards
(Page 3 of 3)
Ladies and Gentlemen of The Jury, Have You Overreached Your Verdict?
A Plainview jury intended to sentence Jesus Piñon, whom they had convicted of aggravated assault, to twenty years’ probation but discovered by reading the Sunday paper that they had in fact sentenced him to twenty years.
You Wanted a Hotline, You Got a Hotline
The City of Corpus Christi distributed flyers to 46,000 homes providing a toll-free number to call for assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. People who called the number got a sex line instead.
First, Lie Down on This Gurney and Roll Up Your Sleeve
With four inmates on death row, New Mexico, a state that hasn’t executed anyone for almost forty years, sent two officials to Texas to witness an execution and seek advice on how to carry out capital punishment.
Politics—The Final Frontier
Executives at Paramount Studios sent a cease-and-desist letter to stop Dallas mayor Ron Kirk from using the theme music of the TV show Star Trek in a campaign ad that begins, “Four years ago, we chose Ron Kirk captain of the Dallas enterprise.”
Wampum Upside The Head
Native American members of the Dallas-based Urban Inter-Tribal Center of Texas protested to the Federal Communications Commission after Fort Worth disc jockey Kidd Kraddick of KISS-FM urged listeners to make up their own Indian names and christened himself Chief Caught Peeing on Side of House by Mother-in-Law.
See Above
Disc jockey Doug Tracht of WARW-FM in Washington, D.C., was suspended after he played part of a song by black hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill, who had been nominated for ten Grammy awards, and then commented, “No wonder people drag them behind trucks.”
Which Way to The Cockpit?
A man and a woman aboard an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Manchester were arrested for violations of public decency, drunkenness, and air-rage laws after they cuddled under a blanket and performed a sex act.
Doesn’t Everybody?
Responding to a column in the Sporting News that referred to the Kansas State University football team as “pompous” and said that everybody would be cheering for KSU to lose to the University of Texas, KSU president Jon Wefald wrote a letter of protest to the publication and also posted it on the school’s Web site. “Outside of Texas,” it read, “very few people cheer for the Longhorns because the University of Texas represents in most people’s minds incredible wealth and arrogance. Many Texans believe the world begins and ends with Texas.”
This Bush Is a Plant
Californian Pat Rick, known as Counterfeit Bill for his Clinton impersonations, is helping to prep George W. Bush look-alike Brent Mendenhall of Missouri for a similar career in faux politics.
The Hall of Fame Hurler Was Plum Worn Out. The Currant Game Would Be His Last. His Arm Was Feeling Akee and His Legs Weren’t So Grape. He Tugged on His Capulin, Rubbed the Back of His Nectarine, and Tried to Think Cherry Thoughts, But Only Meloncholy Ones Came. Could Anything Imbu Him With Enthusiasm? This Pitch Was Dewberry or Die, a Date With Destiny, His Raisin d’Etre. “Holy Cacao,” He Thought to Himself. “The Damson of a Gun Must Not Get the Sweetsop of His Bat on the Ball.” The Roaring Crowd Gave Him Gooseberry Bumps. Suddenly He Felt Lucky to Be Olive. He Stepped Off the Mound to Savor the Moment, and the Batter Wondered, “Now Where Did That Mango?” “Orange You Ever Going to Pitch?” A Cameraman Shouted, and Here Came a Citrange Sight. It Was Ugli. Hit By a Peach
While taping a promotional spot for Texas agricultural products, Nolan Ryan threw pieces of fruit at a sheet of Plexiglas situated in front of a camera, but one toss missed the mark and hit a cameraman in the head with a peach, knocking him to the ground.
Our Question Is, How Can You Hire On as a Cop in Rapides Parish?
Willie Johnson of Houston, sought on an outstanding warrant for aggravated assault, was arrested at a relative’s home in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, after the Houston police telephoned a description of Johnson to officers in Louisiana, who at that moment were watching Johnson during his guest appearance on a Jerry Springer episode about drag queens.
Don’t Have a Cow. Sorry, Make That “Don’t Have a Soy Protein Patty”
Vegetarian Jeanne Daniels, the president of the company that owns Austin’s tony Tarrytown Shopping Center, refused to renew the lease of the Grocery, a gourmet food store, because it sold meat.
He Could Be Sentenced to Up to Five Yards for Ineligible Player Downfield
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was charged with interference with public duties when, while driving behind a family member who was nailed for speeding, he decided to pull over too but then drove off in spite of the police officer’s request that he wait until the ticket was issued.
No Wonder They Disapproved
The ultraconservative Republican Leadership Council of Montgomery County rebuked the all-Republican commissioners’ court for voting “Republican” only 34 percent of the time. One of the votes the council disapproved of was a proclamation making March Mental Health Month.
He Wanted to Habeas the Corpus
The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly rebuked Bastrop County judge Benton Eskew for socializing with a woman whose divorce case was pending in his court and for going to the Yellow Rose men’s club, where she worked, to watch her dance topless.
Practice Makes Perfect
For the first time since air pollution records have been kept, Houston passed Los Angeles as the U.S. city with the most smog days.
The Right Man To Sell Crude
An advertising campaign in Romania for Lukoil, a Russian oil company, featured Dallas actor Larry Hagman posing as J. R. Ewing.
But You Can Keep the Chewing Gum and Baling Wire
NASA took back parts from a space shuttle exhibit at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, because the agency realized it was so short of replacement parts that the equipment might be needed for future missions.
They Left the Metric Conversion Chart at the Alabama Museum
NASA lost contact with its $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft because engineers had failed to convert English units of measurements into the metric equivalents.
“Hey, Isn’t That a Dil—Doh!”
Longview TV station KFXK broadcast a Simpsons rerun that contained a four-second spliced-in segment of a porno movie
Even Newer: Sharon Stone and Acting
Actress Sharon Stone, who came to Dallas to preside over an art auction that benefited the American Foundation for AIDS Research, told nationally syndicated columnist Liz Smith, “Modern art and AIDS in Texas, two fairly new concepts.
Red, for Example, Is the Color of the NEA’s Face
After the National Endowment for the Arts discovered that The Story of Colors, a bilingual children’s picture book, had been authored by Zapatista guerrilla leader Subcomandante Marcos, it canceled its grant to the publisher, El Paso’s Cinco Puntos Press, which, thanks to the publicity, promptly sold 18,000 copies.
“I Shall Never Surrender Or Three-Putt”
Hoping to inspire the American Ryder Cup team to come from behind to defeat Europe, George W. Bush read to the golfers William Barret Travis’ last letter from the Alamo, which concludes with “Victory or Death.”
The Final Exam Was A Cinch Until the Question About How to Beat the Antitrust Laws
Twelve students who failed a Microsoft computer certification course at Southern Methodist University’s Advanced Education Center in Houston sued the school because they said administrators had promised them the course would be easy.
Soon to Open at the Brooklyn Museum
Gregg County Commissioners rescinded a $50,000 grant for Kilgore College’s Texas Shakespeare Festival because the school’s theater department staged a performance of the Pulitzer prize-winning play Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches, which follows the lives of five gay men.
The Devil Made Them Do It
The Texas Lottery, which usually pays out around $250,000 in prizes to winners of its Pick 3 game, had to pay a total of $1.5 million for a game in June because so many people had chosen the winning numbers, 6-6-6, the number of the beast in the Book of Revelation.
Ivins the Terrible
Nationally syndicated columnist Liz Smith quoted former Texas Observer editor Molly Ivins as saying that the paper was in serious financial difficulty, but the current editor, Louis Dubose, subsequently said, “We’re in better shape than we have been in five years, easily.
An Apple a Day Keeps The Legislature Away
State health commissioner Dr. William “Reyn” Archer drew heavy criticism from members of the House Appropriations Committee for seeking candidates for two associate commissioner positions, each paying $76,000 a year and requiring “knowledge or the ability to comprehend and articulate the conflicting dynamics of love and alienation . . .”
The Good News Is, He’s a Natural for Texas Politics
The biography Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President—in which the author, James Howard Hatfield, alleges that the governor was once arrested for possession of cocaine—was recalled by St. Martin’s Press of New York after editors discovered that Hatfield had served five years in prison for soliciting a hit man to kill his former boss in Dallas in 1987.
My Library
