and now... THE NEWS

Vol. 3, No. 3 (yes, only "No. 3")

April 26, 1991

Doug returns from Hungary

On March 21, Doug left Sacramento for Budapest (pronounced "booda-pesht"), Hungary. Taking advantage of a tickets-for-mugs trade with American Airlines (no kidding!), he flew from Sacramento to Chicago and then to Munich, where he caught a train to Budapest.

Upon arrival in Hungary, he immediately set out travelling the countryside finding relatives you never knew you had. While there, articles in newspapers were written about him, he made a t.v. appearance and, of course, the police were after him the whole time.

Now he's back, and he's written an account of this latest adventure of his. For further details, we suggest you read his story. This newsletter has neither the time nor the patience to do it for you.

In a related story, Doug has a new apartment in Sacramento (one of his many apartments throughout the world). The address and phone number are: ?????, Sacramento, CA 95821, (916) x-x.

Newsletter staff visits Santa Ana

The entire newsletter staff was, for some reason, invited to Greg and June's house for Easter.

Greg gave the staff a guided tour of June's garden. And later, during dinner, Brian entertained everyone with a dark, gruesome tale of a glow-in-the-dark bunny. Very scary. Andy told a tale, too, but we're not quite sure what it was about. Aileen didn't tell any tales, she played the piano instead, performing two original compositions!

All in all, it was a wonderful evening topped off by lovely parting gifts (colored Easter eggs and homegrown Swiss chard) as the newsletter staff filed out the door.

Bill buys truck; moves again

Bill has sold his Datsun 240Z and replaced it with a 1985 Ford Ranger (mid-size) pickup. It's red and white and looks a lot like a Coca-Cola truck [that's what it used to be]. It's a four cylinder, 5-speed, has electronic fuel injection, and runs great.

Commenting on the virtues of owning a truck, Bill had this to say: "You know what they say, 'A man without a truck is a man without something to carry his turnips in.'"

Speaking of Bill, he has (surprise!) moved back to Sacramento. Why? "I heard they grow good turnips here," Bill explained. Not only that, but Bill has been given the opportunity to teach computer applications programs to underprivileged government employees. "It's deeply gratifying work," said Bill. "It's important that these students know there's someone out there who cares."

Until he gets a place of his own, Bill can be reached at Dad and Eleanor's.

Mike gets a job

Actually, he has three jobs. He is the music director at KCSS radio in Turlock; he is sort of a public relations/press liaison person for his college (basically, he reads newspapers and looks for articles concerning Cal State Stanislaus); and, on weekends, he's the one behind the customer service counter at Circuit City in Modesto. He's a busy guy. Always on the phone.

John up to six-two-½

This reporter recently conducted an interview with John . We asked him what he was up to, and he said, "6' 2½."

MISCELLANY

Sacramento

It was a clear case of jealousy - your typical love triangle gone bad. It was a Tuesday night. There was a snazzy red convertible sports car in the park. Steve's white pickup was parked nearby, flirting with it. But the red sports car was not interested. It had noticed another red car across the street. In a last-ditch attempt to get attention, Steve's pickup started rolling backward down a slight grade. Since the ignition was off, the steering wheel was locked in position turned to the left. While Steve sat in class unaware of the goings-on outside his pickup rammed the second, rival, red car in the side!

The plot thickens. The snazzy red car was later seen following yet another car; a shiny black Corvette.

The plot thickens again. Remember, this was a Tuesday night in Sacramento. Not only that, but the owner of the Corvette was, according to police, a suspect in Sacramento's recent murder case, the "Tuesday Night Thriller Killer" case.

"I knew it all along," Steve explained to the police on the scene (and anyone else who would listen). "My car is trained to ram murder suspects."

Unfortunately, the police didn't buy it. Neither did the insurance company. They didn't buy the love triangle thing, either.

What happened to the snazzy red sports car? We may never know.

Livingston

Did you know that the most ancient human skeleton fossil ever found is called "Lucy"? True story.

Speaking of Lucy, can you believe that her son Mike actually beat her in Scrabble three times in a row?!

Still speaking of Lucy, she and Mike were awakened in the middle of the night recently by an eerie sucking, gurgling sound emanating from the bathroom. Each of them got out of their beds and bravely set out to find out what was causing this strange noise. "Of course my first thought," Lucy explained, "was - What would Oprah Winfrey do in this situation?"

"I just thought someone was drowning in the toilet," said Mike.

As it turned out, the problem was that, due to the drought, the ground water level had dropped so far down that their well pipe was not long enough to reach the ground water. Thus, the toilet was sucking air instead of water as it tried to keep its reservoir full.

Have you checked your toilet lately?

AN EXPLANATION

[Yes, it has been a while since the last newsletter. And we have had many complaints. Not that there's any correlation between these two statements. Anyway, in case you're wondering, below is an explanation of The Newsletter situation as it is today. Normally, the editor would be writing this sort of thing, but, well, we couldn't find him.]

Real life at The Holmes Family Newsletter is not as rosy as one might think. Not rosy at all, in fact. There's already been one murder (Larry of "Ask Larry"). And, of course, an attempt was made on the life of the editor himself.

There have been many, many power struggles within these walls since The Newsletter's inception. Many believe it was just such a power struggle that led to the murder of "Ask Larry" Larry. It seems he wanted a key to the bathroom, but the editor wouldn't give him one. An argument ensued. And Larry was found dead the very next day outside the bathroom door, clutching pitifully to the door knob. It was a horrible sight; one this reporter will never forget.

There has been office politics, in-fighting, back-biting, knee-jerking. There have been sex scandals, money-laundering schemes, racketeering, prostitution. You name it.

Many blame the editor himself for the situation as it is today. It used to be a joy - for this reporter, at least - coming to work in the morning. The editor and his entire staff were happy and gay. Well, not gay. But, you know what I mean. Now the editor is impossible to work for. He's grouchy. He's grumpy. In the mornings, don't even try talking to him until after his third cup of coffee. (Rumor has it, he has hemorrhoids. Probably because of all that coffee he drinks.) The entire staff is in turmoil.

Some theorize that the troubles all began way back in December of '89. Remember? That's when a Japanese conglomerate (Mitsubishi) attempted to buy The Newsletter. In response to this buy-out attempt, the editor did a bit of clever, almost genius, probably illegal, maneuvering. Oh yes, he sold The Newsletter and pocketed the cash. But then - and here's where the genius part comes in - he changed the name of The Newsletter, and continued to change it for each subsequent issue. So Mitsubishi ended up paying a huge sum of money for absolutely nothing because "The Newsletter" no longer existed! Ingenious, huh?

Anyway, that's when the troubles all began. You may have noticed that The Newsletter's address kept changing after that. This was done in an attempt to keep one step ahead of Mitsubishi and its private investigators.

The editor became a different person. Oh, he was the same person, but his personality (such as it was) changed. He stopped shaving, stopped brushing his teeth, stopped taking showers, started smoking really smelly cigars (which was nice, actually, because it drowned out his body odor). And he stayed out late every night.

If you were unfortunate enough to be working late at the office, every once in a while from inside his office you would hear uncontrollable laughter, followed by blood-curdling screams. It was eerie and quite disturbing, because the lights in his office were never on and you had no idea he was in there until you heard the screams!

Anyway, the point is, you should feel lucky this edition of The Newsletter ever made it to your mailbox.