HOOSIERS DON'T WEAR HEELS

THE MUSIC MAN DIDN'T WEAR A DRESS "Not Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, Gary Indiana, My home sweet home". Harold Hill (played by Robert Preston) sang these words on the big screen in 1962 in the film version of The Music Man. His home sweet home might have been a little less sweet had the music man dressed like a music woman. Last week, in Gary, Indiana a high school student named Kevin Logan was denied entrance to his prom because he came dressed in a gown and high heels. It's true that a guy wearing high heels might not be able to run up and down the basketball court like Larry Bird did (in sneakers) and drain three-pointers, but shouldn't he be able to dance at his prom? I always thought the IN after Gary stood for INdiana. Could it be that it actually stands for INtolerance? A school official said school policy bans males from wearing dresses and that he was denied entrance to the prom based on his clothing and not his sexual orientation. Why have a school policy like that in the first place? Isn't a prom supposed to be a culmination of your time in high school? It's a time to celebrate the end of one time in life and the beginning of a new one. How would a guy wearing a dress diminish that in any way? Would the other students not be able to enjoy themselves? I understand rules like students can't bring guns to school, a gun could actually hurt someone. Who is going to be hurt by a dress? The room is already full of girls wearing them. The school refunded his $85 prom ticket and sent him home. Shame on you West Side High School. Are you really preparing your students for the real world? Or more so to live out a shallow, close-minded existence in podunk Indiana? A prom is a celebration for graduating seniors. If a guy wants to wear a gown because he'd be more comfortable in a gown, he should be able to. If a girl wants to wear a tux, she should be able to. What are people so afraid of? News Flash! If your child attends a prom with a guy wearing a gown, he's not going to contract "gayness" and start wearing them himself. The only lessons being taught here are intolerance and hate. Be afraid of things that will actually harm you, like global warming. You are all so busy thumping your bibles at gay people that you don't realize that it's 80 degrees in January these days. Gay people aren't going to hell for being gay, people who are hateful and condemn them for being different are going to hell. That's right, write it down and remember it. High school is not an easy time for most kids. If this young man had enough gumption to wear a dress to his prom and face ridicule from fellow students, the school should, at the very least, support that. It looks like the lyrics to the famous Music Man song might have to be changed, "You can do it in Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome, but in Gary Indiana, guys in dresses get sent home". BONDS TRADES BALLS FOR HOME RUNS After weeks of waiting it has finally happened, Barry Bonds has passed Babe Ruth to become #2 on baseball's career home runs list. I'm sick of listening to everyone vilify Barry. The guy took steroids, so what? Half of the players who played in Bond's time took steroids. You didn't see all of the hitting 715 home runs. Steroids might make you stronger, but when you're sitting in the batter's box, staring down ninety-five mile an hour fast balls, it doesn't slow the ball down or swing the bat for you. Baseball is more to blame than Barry Bonds. Baseball publicly celebrated the steroid enhanced seasons of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. You can bet money that those guys weren't being piss tested before each game. Major League Baseball has known about steroids as long as baseball players have been taking them, and chose to do nothing until the news media (and congress) took more notice. Barry Bonds took steroids. He claims he didn't know they were steroids. Do I believe him? No. When you are an athlete, and your body is worth tens of millions of dollars to you, I would assume you take the time to know what you are putting in, and on, your body. If Barry honestly used the "clear" and "the cream" and did it without knowing what was in them, he might want to try switching to brain steroids next. Barry used illegal substances, he hit a ton of HR's, but he's paid quite a cost for it. He's been grilled in the media and at away games but that's just the tip of the needle. Let's discuss for a minute the effects of steroids. We've all seen the growth in Barry's head. That is one huge melon. But while his head is growing, in all likelihood, his testicles are shrinking. The man might be swinging some mighty wood at the plate but chances are, the bat in his pants is more reminiscent of a soft NERF one. Bad acne, liver failure, heart failure, blood clots, depression, insomnia, muscle and joint pain, and many other exciting ailments are all on deck for Barry in the coming years. So why is he getting so much bad publicity? This guy is willing to trade his looks (at least a normal sized head), his testicles, the ability to get erections, his liver, his heart, his emotional well-being, normal sleep, clear skin, and an array of other things just so he can hit a few more balls over the outfield wall. Should we really be making him out to be a villain, or should we just feel sorry for him? I'd like to be able to step up to the plate against any pitcher in the league and slam a home run into the upper deck, but not if I couldn't go home that night and have some killer sex while I watched the highlights on Sportscenter. Are those HR's going to perform heart and liver surgery on him when his body starts to shut down? Can he replace his aching joints and muscles with baseballs he knocked out of the park? I doubt very much the baseballs are going to hold him and tell him everything will be okay when he's suffering a bout of depression or is hopelessly awake at 4 AM every night. I feel sorry for Barry. I feel sorry for him because he wanted so badly to be the single season HR champion (and possibly the all-time HR champion) that he traded his health and his manhood for it. Barry, I hope when you are sitting at home in ten years, with your chest pains, liver spots, blot clots, late nights, fits of crying, shrunken balls, and limp dick, that it was all worth it. You might one day be the all-time leader in home runs, but you are already one of the all-time biggest morons. THEY SAY SPOON, FULL OF TRUTH IS THE BEST SITE ON THE NET My Mom-mom is a wonderful grandmother. She drove me to school for four full months in tenth grade when the grind of taking two trains each morning got to be too much. She is a very giving woman and I love her very much. She does have one quirk though that drives me bonkers. She is firm believer in anything "they" say. If she sees it on TV or in a newspaper, it must be true. TV just can't say things that aren't true, right grandma? But who is "they"? No one seems to know. She will tell me something matter of factly, like, "You know they say that you should use at least 25 SPF sunscreen when you go outside it summer". When I was a little kid I just used to accept what she was telling me. These days, in my quest to question things before accepting them, I want to know more. "Who says that grandma?" "It's what they say," "Okay that's great, but who is 'they'?" She doesn't seem to know. It would seem that "they" is anyone who has even slightly more knowledge of the subject at hand. If we're talking about sunscreen, "they" is anyone who has more experience with sunscreen than she does, even if they are just a clerk in a store who sells it. I might be a little more willing to trust the advice if there were more rigid standards for joining team "they", but that's not the case. The sunscreen "they" does not just consist of scientists who know about the molecular components of the sunscreen or dermatologists who know the most about skin cancer, it also contains the guy who works the counter at the local pharmacy and the ad exec who wrote the little blurb on the back of the sunscreen bottle. Over the years, my grandmother has shared the wisdom of "they" with me on countless occasions. "They" say that it's not good to swim within 30 minutes of eating. "They" say that the war is almost over. "They" say that boys just get more than girls (this applied to birthday money). "They" say a lot of things. According to the circles I run in, "They" say this is the best site on the net. "They" say that George Bush is the worst President of all time. "They" say that anyone who believes everything they hear without questioning the validity of the information is a sucker. I say, as long as at least two people can agree on something, there is a "they" that says it. However, the information you receive is only as good as the "they" you get it from. Spoon, Full of Truth: A "they" you can trust. THEY SAY THIS IS THE END OF TODAY'S POST They were wrong. Stay tuned for lots of new excitement this week including reviews and some new fiction. There's always room in your diet for a little truth. Make sure to savor it, one Spoon, Full of it, at a time. Now, this is the real end of this post.