David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published June 4, 2002

Sucked in by the Dwarf of Death

"Meet the Dwarf of Death; Midget hit man is just 3-foot-5."

That headline alone is worth my $2.79, plus I crossed another item off my never-done-it list -- I paid for and leafed through a copy of the Weekly World News. When I saw the headline in the newsstand, I thought, "Now THAT'S something I can write about. If I can't make a decent column out of the Dwarf of Death, then Pauline needs to give me the ax and stop payment on my check."

He's called Little Vito, and he carries a baseball bat, but I don't think he's headed to the park for BP. Vito uses his bat (presumably a Little League model) to reign terror down, well, up, on his mob victims. According to the story, "Sources say Vito Perlongo, a tiny Sicilian terror at 3 feet, 5 inches, is virtually invulnerable in his reign over the crime bosses, who seem powerless to cut short his deadly game."

Is there a writing job more fun than that of the Weekly World News reporter? No way. The public may scoff and roll their eyes at the outlandish and ludicrous headlines, but come on, what's the problem? No one treats these stories seriously. It's just silly fun. The Weekly World News is to journalism what Airplane! is to film making, in that if you spend your time muttering to yourself how stupid it is, then you're missing the point.

It's supposed to be stupid. That's the fun. All the Weekly World News and Airplane! ask is that you set aside your brain for a few moments and enjoy the absurdity.

I can do that.

Turning the page from the Dwarf of Death, I come to a pulled quote from a story about why women say no to their husbands. You know what I mean. "My husband no longer brushes his teeth, hardly showers - and constantly breaks wind!" I guess that pretty well sums it up.

The Weekly World News reminds me of some of the best times ever. I worked on my college newspaper, and every April Fool's Day the staff would put together what we called a "parody issue," which basically meant that we'd fabricate and publish moronic stories about college life. When I think back to my college daze, those are some of my fondest memories.

The Collegiate Slime, as our "parody issue" was dubbed (a take-off on the paper's real name, Collegiate Times) was hastily slapped together at 5 a.m. after we'd spent the last 12 hours getting the real paper, the Times, to press. After working all night, chugging a dozen or so Mountain Dews and eating week-old pizza found in the film-storage refrigerator, you get a wee bit punchy. At 5 in morning with a good, strong caffeine buzz going, EVERYTHING is funny. We'd laugh so hard we'd cry, the tears splashing to the Dorito-dust-stained computer keyboards.

Of course, no one on campus thought our jokes were nearly as funny as we, but who cared? When it's 5 a.m. and you're pecking out fake stories about mousse-drenched frat boys, pompous college administrators and homecoming queen elections, you can't help but enjoy yourself. The Slime was for us, not them.

I imagine that's what it's like at the Weekly World News office. The guy who writes the story, "Man grows hair on bald eagles ... and now they can't see where they're flying!" is enjoying his work.

If the writer's not having a ball, then surely the photo department is.

Along with the story about growing hair on bald eagles, there are "before" and "after" pictures. In the before shot, we see a majestic bald eagle, its powerfully piercing eyes staring across the purple mountains' majesty. In the "after" picture, the eagle is sporting a long, rockin' hairdo the likes of which would make Ted Nugent envious. The hair is so full it covers the eagle's eye, so, as the story indicates, "a short-term solution was to give the bird ponytails," giving the symbol of our nation's honor a Willie Nelson look. Classic.

One year my fellow collegiate reporters and I used photo tricks to paste the head of our university president onto the rippled body of an oily bodybuilder. Silly, but it pales in comparison to a ponytailed bald eagle.

Leslie Nielsen and the Zucker brothers would be proud.

What I want to know is how do I get on at the Weekly World News? That'd be the perfect job for me. What kind of experience do they look for? I could send them a few clips from my Slime days. Perhaps the old college administrators, frat boys and homecoming queens could put in a good word as job references.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.