BALLET CUTS MUSICIANS TO SAVE MONEY; NEXT TO GO -- THE LEOTARDS

NO-CLOTHES POLICY NOT ONLY WILL SAVE COSTS, IT WILL HELP BALLET TAP INTO "LECHEROUS OLD MAN" MARKET

PITTSBURGH - Last month, the financially troubled Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre decided to use canned music during its performances instead of hiring musicians, a move expected to save the Ballet $500,000 per year.

Now it plans to save another $20,000 -- by ditching the dancers' leotards.

"The ballet is supposed to highlight the human form, so leotards are a wholly unnecessary cost," said the Ballet's Executive Director Velveeta Warhol-Sammartino. "Besides, discarding the dancers' clothes will allow the Ballet to tap into a new demographic -- namely, the 'lecherous old man' market," she said.

But Bob Haas, owner of nearby gentleman's club Bare Elegance, is staunchly opposed to the move and intends to do something about it, even though Haas admits that he has never attended a performance of the Ballet. "It is shameful that those highly artistic girls would be forced to do their delightful pirouettes, and what have you, without leotards, thus exposing their delicate bodies to the chill of that drafty theater," Haas said in a written statement. "I am therefore donating whatever funds are necessary to clothe these talented lasses so that art lovers, such as me, will have no need to attend the ballet in order to see naked women."

Haas denied that his philanthropy is motivated to stem competition for Bare Elegance. "My only goal is to keep those fetching dancers completely healthy, for the sake of the arts," he said.

But Haas' philanthropy doesn't extend to the Ballet's male dancers, who insist they need to wear at least some clothing in order to provide them support. "Otherwise, when we do The Nutcracker," said dancer Pierre Knox, "it quite literally will be 'the nutcracker.'"

NO MORE OBLIQUE MARKETING: ABERCROMBIE AND FITCH ANNOUNCES "SLUTS-WEAR" LINE OF SHIRTS FOR GIRLS

ONCE A YEAR, PITTSBURGHERS GATHER AT GATEWAY CENTER TO AWAIT INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE MOTHER SHIP

EDITORIAL: FANS OF "50 CENT" LACK COMMON SEN

Last week's senseless gun battle in a suburban Pittsburgh cineplex that left one man dead following a showing of Get Rich or Die Tryin' starring rapper "50 Cent" underscores that in the hip-hop culture, human life is afforded little value and, worse yet, the necessity for using the plural form when more than one "cent" is involved is not at all understood.

The only way to combat this wretched situation is to outlaw the sale of this cacophony by "50 Cent" that masquerades as music.

This may seem drastic but -- to put it in a language that "50 Cent" himself would understand -- the best offen is a good defen.

BUSH DECLARES TRIP TO JAPAN MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN HIS FATHER'S IN '92: HE DIDN'T VOMIT ON PRIME MINISTER

LOEWS SCRATCHES "CAPOTE" AS WARRING GANGS FROM WELL-TO-DO SQUIRREL HILL MIX IT UP IN LOBBY

HOMESTEAD, Pa - Loews Cinema in Homestead has pulled the controversial film Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman following a melee that erupted at the cappuccino counter of the cineplex last night between rival gangs of well-to-do Squirrel Hill.

Following the 9 p.m. showing of Capote, the self-styled "Hebrew Homies," pictured above, a vicious, devil-may-care band of Taylor Allderdice High youths whose membership criteria includes a grade point average of 3.5 or higher, "got into it" with their arch-rivals, the "Jets," a horde of good-looking Caucasian toughs with no discernible ethnic affiliation who dance, sing show tunes and occasionally model for Abercrombie and Fitch.

The fight apparently was triggered by the insistence of one of the Homies that Truman Capote, not Harper Lee, was the principal author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Tempers flared when members of the Jets, in turn, insisted that Dill, the friend of "Scout" and Jem in Mockingbird, a character allegedly inspired by Capote, did not evidence overt signs of homosexuality in the novel.

"Have you even read the [expletive] book, dude?" shouted Aaron Feinstein at his hunky rivals.

One of the theater's Concession Associates, Reg Henry, was an eyewitness to the fracas. "I was explaining to several of the 'Hebrews' that for 20 cents more, Loews would give them 16 additional gallons of popcorn. Well, then we started haggling over the price when -- wham -- the Jets decked them from behind. It was terrible -- yarmulkes flying everywhere!"

Matty Alou, manager of the theater, said that Capote has been inciting strong emotions since it opened. "This fight was nothing," he said. "The most vicious are the CMU gangs. Last night, we had one Chinese kid beat another over the head with a chess board. And believe me, that's not easy to do when you're using a laptop."

"DOONESBURY" AT 35 REFUSES TO LIVE IN THE PAST AND MAINTAINS ITS "CUTTING EDGE" -- AS SHOWN BY THIS STRIP FROM TODAY'S PAPER

PITTSBURGH AGREES TO RETURN THE GUGGENHEIM TO NEW YORK

CITY COUNCIL ADMITS PITTSBURGH STOLE MUSEUM AND USES IT AS PARKING GARAGE. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT?" CRIES GUGENHEIM'S CURATOR

PITTSBURGH - After months of denials, members of Pittsburgh City Council admitted in an emotional emergency session today that the city had, indeed, purloined the Guggenheim Museum from New York City, and that it uses the world famous building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a parking garage between Smithfield Street and Liberty Avenue. Under pressure from New York City officials and the New York news media, Council unanimously voted to return the famous structure to New York City.

The Guggenheim's curator Jingo Bang immediately chartered a plane to Pittsburgh to inspect the building. "What have you done to it?" he cried as he drove down Smithfield Street. "It's practically unrecognizable."

City Council's decision to return the building to New York came within days of the plea by British Prime Minister Tony Blair that Pittsburgh return pieces of Stonehenge, which he claims the city stole and is hiding in Mellon Green, a small park between the USX Tower and One Mellon Center. http://carbolicsmokeblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/great-britain-accuses-pittsburgh-of.html To date, Council has refused Blair's request.

PRINCIPAL WHO "SHAMED" 8-YR-OLD FALSELY ACCUSED OF STEALING IS SLATED TO DO THE SAME THING TO CHARLES MANSON

PRINCIPAL WILL PARADE NOTORIOUS KILLER FROM CELL-TO-CELL AND BRAND HIM "LIAR" AND "THIEF," SIMILAR TO SHAMING OF LITTLE GIRL

PITTSBURGH - Mark Whitby, principal of a suburban Pittsburgh elementary school, has agreed to a punishment for unfairly "shaming" an 8-year-old girl by parading her from classroom to classroom and calling her a liar and a thief after another girl accused her of stealing five dollars. The other girl subsequently recanted her accusation.

Because the "shaming" was so effective, Whitby has agreed to do the same thing to serial killer mastermind Charles Manson. Whitby will parade Manson from cell to cell at Corcoran State Prison in California and publicly brand him "liar" and "thief." Whitby met with Manson this morning, above, to establish the groundrules of the shaming.

GREAT BRITAIN ACCUSES PITTSBURGH OF PURLOINING SLABS FROM STONEHENGE

PITTSBURGH - British Prime Minister Tony Blair personally telephoned Pittsburgh's lame-duck Mayor Tom Murphy this morning to plead for the return of several megaliths that he claims once comprised a portion of Stonehenge, the neolithic monument in the English County of Wilshire. Blair alleges that Pittsburgh somehow pilfered the large standing stones, which date to 2500 BC, and has hidden them in a fountain in Mellon Green, a small park between USX Tower and One Mellon Center.

Later, in a free-wheeling interview with Peter Leo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Blair explained that before the megaliths were moved to Mellon Green, they were hidden beneath the Jenkins Arcade where Fifth Avenue Place now stands, and subsequently they were moved to Three Rivers Stadium underneath the visiting team's dugout.

Murphy was dumbfounded by Blair's call. "As they say in England, Tony Blair is 'crackers,'" Murphy said. "I checked with everybody I could speak with in the British government, and nobody knows what he's talking about. The man is nuts."

Nevertheless, Pittsburgh City Council made the Stonehenge controversy its top priority and weighed in on the side of keeping the stones. "Who are the British to tell City Council to return the stones," thundered Council President Gene Ricciardi, "when they, themselves, refuse to restore the Elgin Marbles they misappropriated from the Parthenon?"

Councilman Sala Udin said he is fearful of establishing a dangerous precedent. "If we return Stonehenge to England," Udin said, "what's to stop New York City from demanding that we give back the Guggenheim Museum, which, as we all know, Pittsburgh purloined and uses as a parking garage between Smithfield Street and Liberty Avenue?"

Councilman Bill Peduto immediately silenced Udin. "You know better than that," scolded Peduto. Peduto requested that any mention of the Guggenheim parking garage be stricken from the official minutes of City Council. See related story at http://carbolicsmokeblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/pittsburgh-agrees-to-return-guggenheim.html

BUSH NOMINATES TO SUPREME COURT JUDGE AL ITO

BREAKING NEWS

WASHINGTON - President Bush today nominated to fill Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Supreme Court California Superior Court Judge Al Ito, the brother of O.J. Simpson criminal trial judge Lance Ito, and the cousin of Third Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito.

BUSH CLAIMS HIS BELLY LAUGH IN RESPONSE TO QUESTION ABOUT RIOT-RAVAGED FRANCE WAS DUE TO "UNRELATED FUNNY THOUGHT"

WASHINGTON - President Bush claims that his belly-laugh in response to a reporter's question about the plight of riot-ravaged France was not, as some commentators have speculated, derisive gloating over France's misfortune in light of France's wide-spread anti-Americanism, its strong opposition to Bush administration policies, or its citizens' intense dislike of President Bush personally.

Rather, the President said that at the exact moment the question was posed to him, it just happened that "an unrelated funny thought" popped into his head.

INTELLISMACK™ SOFTWARE MOTIVATES EMPLOYEES -- BY "TRASH TALKING" THEM

PITTSBURGH - Pittsburgh blog guru Mike Woycheck, 77, is widely regarded as the godfather of blogging, an almost mythical international figure among the blogging set.

"People act like I invented blogging," barks Woycheck with his customary modesty. "Well, I didn't invent blogging. Let's just say I made it what it is today, that's all."

Woycheck needs more than 50 full-time employees to run his massive searchable directory of weblogs called Pittsburgh Webloggers, located at http://www.pghbloggers.org/. But the words "godfather" and "guru" are rarely heard among the mostly twenty-something year-olds who comprise his work force. They have other words to describe Woycheck, including "martinet," "dictator," and "slavedriver."

"Generation 'Y'? More like 'generation ZZZ,' barely awake" bellowed Woycheck from his office, the third booth at Finnegan's Wake on Pittsburgh's North Shore. "The damn young men primp and preen like homecoming queens, with their little earings and caps on backwards and their moisturized skin and who knows what-all is pierced," says Woycheck, working himself up to a lather. "The damn boys smell nicer than the girls, which is sick, sick, sick! And don't even get me started on the girls" he screamed, kicking the chair at the table next to his for emphasis. Spittle spewed from his mouth.

Although Woycheck refuses even to go near his own work-force, that doesn't mean he leaves them to their own devices. Every employee's computer is equipped with the interactive software he designed, Intellismack™, that brings them Mike Woycheck, all day, all the time -- "trash talking" to motivate.

"You dare type a personal note on your computer during work time, Intellismack™ trash talks you," Woycheck explained. "You misspell a word, or you violate a rule of grammar, Intellismack™ calls you every name in the book, attacking your intelligence and your gender identity. See, these cretins grew up on professional wrestling so they ought to be used to it."

Ironically, until last week one of Woycheck's employees was professional wrestling legend and Pittsburgh native Bruno Sammartino. But Sammartino quit after being "trash talked" by Intellismack™. "I told Mike [Woycheck] the same thing I told [Vince] McMahon [Chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment]. This kind of 'trash talk' is a symptom of what's ruining the sport. That's why I refuse to be admitted to the [Professional Wrestling] Hall of Fame."

Intellismack™ told Sammartino to go to hell, fast, and it even gave him a little electric shock in order to "motivate" him to pack his things and get out.

NEW RESTAURANT OPENS IN PITTSBURGH ON ROOF OF GULF TOWER

MYSTERIOUS URINE SHOWER DOUSES PEDESTRIANS NEXT TO GULF TOWER; POLICE BAFFLED

STATE LAWMAKERS NAB PAIN-IN-ASS COLUMNIST FOR SCUTTLING PAY RAISE

BREAKING NEWS

PITTSBURGH - Henchmen believed to be associated with the leadership of both houses of the Pennsylvania state legislature kidnapped award winning Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Brian O'Neill early this morning, in apparent retaliation for O'Neill's crusade against the hefty pay increase that state lawmakers gave themselves, then decided to repeal yesterday in a bow to public pressure.

O'Neill's persistent harangues are widely credited with torpedoing the pay hike. Harrisburg insiders say that the kidnapping had broad support in both houses.

Post-Gazette writing guru Peter Leo issued a statement on behalf of the newspaper: "Although Brian is physically gone, the Post-Gazette is pleased that it will be able to run almost a full year's worth of columns that he wrote prior to his kidnapping. Unfortunately, all of those columns deal with the legislators' pay increase."

Reaction at the Post-Gazette otherwise was mixed. Sports writer Bob Smizik's column this morning is titled: "O'Neill had it coming; pay hike good for state."

GOP ADOPTS NEW ICON TO LET WOMEN KNOW "IT HAS WHAT THEY WANT"