I can answer that in two words, Chuck... by Matt Worley
The news of Mike Tyson's ear biting techniques was just another distraction last night as I sat in a bar trying desperately to stay awake. Our little band of revelers were at the last stop on a multi-layered journey to getting quite demolished in the brain. It was my brother's birthday, of course, which meant hot and spicy Los Cuates New Mexican cuisine mixed with a few carafes of margaritas. By ten-thirty, we'd made it downtown to spend a little more money on beer and music. After one beer I had to switch to Coke just to keep everything swimming at least semi-coherently. But what was this talk of Tyson ending his boxing career for all intensive purposes by biting Holyfield twice--once on each ear? We laughed for a few minutes, thinking our punker friend (wearing an approximation of Princess Leia's bun hair) was just giving into rumor and sick humor. Then we realized the story was true, and that $60 wasn't such a bad price to see a grown man bite off a part of another man's ear.
Later this week an estimated 100,000 people are expected over a six or seven day period in the town of Roswell, NM. Regular population in Roswell is 45,000. Even if everyone in Roswell shared a bed with a visitor, there wouldn't be enough room. Hotels are booked as far away as Clovis and Soccoro (90 to 120 miles away), and the anticipation is beginning to get a little deafening. As most people know, 50 years ago in Roswell the townspeople got spooked. We celebrate this anniversary with t-shirts, books, movies, stuffed extra-terrestrial entities and "Free Parking For Aliens" signs. The military explanation for the incident has remained virtually unchanged since a few days after something crashed outside of Roswell fifty years ago. It was a weather balloon. Last week the Air Force decided to throw its hand into the fray once again and try to answer the other questions that have popped up over the last fifty years. They should have just kept their mouth shut, but instead the story about throwing test dummies out of a plane just doubled the expected turnout (from 50,000 to 100,000) for alien week in Roswell.
Earlier this week three pipe bombs were found in the small town of Bernalillo (just north of Albuquerque). None of them exploded of their own volition--each was found before detonation and then were "safely disposed of" by the bomb squad. One was found in a newspaper lock box, carefully tucked inside the morning edition. Another was in a post office drop box. The last was run over in the county court house parking lot by a car. The bomber was discovered to have turned himself in to a hospital for psychiatric help a day later. The bomber's son told the police how his father had made the family watch as he built the bombs. Another of the bomber's hobbies? He was building a spacecraft to fly to Mars. No one was hurt by the pipe bombs, but this didn't stop local TV news stations from showing dramatic explosion footage from the bomb squad's "safe disposal" techniques. The tag line to these pictures: "TWO BOMBS EXPLODE IN BERNALILLO!"
It is going to get worse before it gets better. This has nothing to do with politics, aliens, mass consumption of alcohol or petty grievances. The real reason everyone is getting all riled up about everything is this: The Millennium. No one will admit this at the moment--they've got millions of explanations for the myriad of strangeness that has occurred over the last few years: poverty, TV, joblessness, movies, music, liberals, Rush Limbaugh...the list could go on. The point is, everyone is freaking out.
As the numbers roll closer to 2000 (and no matter what everyone says about 2001, the year 2000 will be the biggie because of the 2 and all those zeros), the fear that everything is going to end in, well, something BIG, is in the back of everyone's mind. Maybe Jesus is coming back. Maybe the computers will all implode from the inability to understand the year 2000. Maybe China will decide they want to be the only billion people on the planet. Maybe aliens will land and take us to the promised land--or maybe they'll just blow us all away. It doesn't matter what people think is going to happen in 2000...just that something will.
Everyone wants to be counted and the time is running out. So everyone raise your hand in an orderly fashion and we'll get to your statement. Mr. Guy, what do you have to say?
"I just wanted to voice my belief that all rabbits will overthrow their masters at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000."
What about 2001?
"We'll all be dead by then, sir. So it don't rightly matter, does it?"
Matt Worley is patiently watching as everyone scrambles for cover. He'll write the Book of the Millennium when it's all over and look forward to using the phrase "ought-six" in 2006.