Whew. It's been a busy couple of months for me. Some of you may be surprised to hear that I've recently remarried. It was a whirlwind courtship and, well, to be honest, we may not have gotten to know each other well enough. New bride Darva Conger and I spent a lovely week on a Caribbean cruise, having dinner together on four occasions and sleeping in separate beds. This was followed by our joyous return to my palatial 1200-square-foot home, press reports about my various restraining orders (though no connection yet to Lesley Visser), and an immediate bolting for the talk show circuit by Darva. I don't know what she's complaining about. So far it's going at least as well as my first marriage (rimshot).

I had to pick up the pen again because it's time to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Dumber than Rocks incident. For those of you who haven't heard, this was the occasion when vigilant reader Greg Freeman and I covered ourselves with tanning accelerator and walked 4 miles down Daytona Beach. During the day. On purpose. Sober. Also, we were probably smoking.

It's hard to describe what subsequently (some would say consequently) happened, except to say that we experienced some discomfort. I think the key point came sometime later that evening when we stopped being afraid that death was imminent and started being afraid that death was not imminent.

We learned from our experience, though. Our improved intelligence was evidenced later that spring by a variety of incidents, including my attempt to bribe college basketball referee Don Rutledge, running over the foot of vigilant reader Andrew Baillie with my car, and falling asleep on the subway in New York City. People took notice of us that year. They were not impressed. On the street, they would walk past us and say, "There but for the grace of God...."

This brings to mind what I like to refer to as the "Don Rutledge Story," which is neither relevant nor terribly funny, but [mildly bad word referring to the place Jerry Falwell will spend eternity], it's my column. Quit reading if you don't like it. In the "Don Rutledge Story," which consists of the following Entirely True Events, Greg and I said to him, "Are you gonna call 'em like you see 'em, Don?" and Don replied, "No, boys, I'm gonna call 'em like they are."

So anyway, my point is, with the stuff we did, you'd've thought we could never get elected to public office. At least, not until the George Dubya "W" Bush story came out.

Speaking of segues, much is going on in politics these days. It's been a big week in the presidential race as the hopefuls celebrated Super Fat Tuesday (literally, laissez les bon temps rollez sur Mardi gras el grande). Once every four years, the potential nominees get together on Ash Wednesday Eve to see which candidate can get the most women to bare their breasts at him. Vice President Al Gore was the runaway winner, although some suggested that after being in the Clinton White House for 8 years, he ought to be pretty good at it.

In state news, it is now been determined that while Governor George Ryan was running for office, everyone in the entire state of Illinois except then-Secretary of State Ryan knew that Drivers License Facility managers were shaking down workers for cash for Ryan's campaign. To pay the protection money, the workers sold commercial truck licenses for bribes to people who had never seen trucks before. I mean the workers got the bribes, not the people who had never seen trucks before. These people (now I mean the ones who had never seen trucks before) then would go and cause fatal accidents on or near major roads using trucks. No one cares about this story. It's dull and unexciting. You even stopped reading about it 3 sentences ago.

The point is, if Ryan is proved to have known about this (which we shouldn't assume just because his niece was a bagman and his wife received detailed letters about the scheme), the charges could be almost as serious as giving a legally accurate albeit misleading answer to a question about Monica Lewinsky in a deposition in a lawsuit by Paula Jones in which Ken Starr was involved. See, I throw around a few names like that, and I bet now your interest is piqued again, isn't it? You Philistine.

This is short this time, but even George Will only has to write 720 words. Of course, he does it more often than every 4 months, but I don't get paid as much. Besides, I gotta go. Regis is on.