Half-Baked Assertions Refuted!!

CONFIDENTIAL TO BIG FAT LARRY: Finding God, my dear Big Fat Larry, is one thing; finding Ruth Carter Stapleton is another thing entirely. Your wife just might have a point.

A NOTE TO THE READER: The first page of the rough draft of this column was either lost or Blown Off in the Shop. This is a new version, which I had to write under incredible pressure. I have tried, largely unsuccess-fully as it turns out, to reproduce the "lines" which originally appeared on the lost page Thanks, Marc.

KEN BAKER, PUBLICIST for California's Berserkley Records, called me yesterday to let me know that next week's Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers concert at the Paradise will be sold out if a lot of people buy tickets. This is one of those rare occasions on which I actually recommend that you go to a concert: Jonathan Richman is really good, really weird, and he puts on a great snow; most other artists these days, like Queen, Kiss, Heart, and Kidney, are all done with mirrors. Or holograms.

ANY BLANK SPACE which appears in this column, or, for that matter, anything that looks especially strange about this column, is not my fault, but the fault of whoever it was who lost the original page One.

MANY STUPID THINGS have been on T.V. since we all started watching it, but perhaps nothing ever on T.V. that could legitimately be written about in this column was more stupid than the Famous National Magazine Show last week, followed, closely, in second, by the Salute to the Beatles (not to be confused with the infinitely superior Beatlemania, which is lousy itself, to give you an idea of how lousy) on the other network (or was it the same network?), featuring 12 people I guarantee you who when the Beatles first came out were already so old that they could only joke "Spray D-Con on them, spray D-Con on them!"

A PORTION OF THIS WEEK'S COLUMN not attecting the outcome of the contest has been deleted. (Stet)

This paragraph is not intended as part of the column and probably should be removed also.

CONTEST: Readers are encouraged, but not required, to submit with their entries two official copies of the undergraduate transcript and a letter from the registrar explaining why it is printed on green paper that is too long to put into a regular-sized envelope.

SORRY, READERS, but that contest idea was a real low blow. I realize that those of you at Wellesley and other places don't have the same color transcripts in the first place, and in the second place, it was only part of a contest, and there was no prize. Here is a possible prize: a moped.,

LAUGHING? Stop for a minute. Think about what you could be doing right now instead of reading this. Still laughing? Seek help.

NO ONE had the common courtesy to leave a copy of something around from which I could steal some listings, so I suggest you look elsewhere. Now, I'm going to put a bunch of names in "Bold Face" type to make it look like I've put listings at the end of this piece. (So when Tony gives the column the weekly "cursory check" he'll think all's well...) Frank Sinatra, The Captain and/or Tennille, Samuel Huntington, Bill Blass, (ha ha ha ha ha Orpheum, Music Hall, December 12, ha ha ho ho ho, December 14, ho ho) Daryll Hall and John Oates, Paul Anks, Plastics, Moped (always good for a laugh, this column should be shot).

X gets the square. Congratulations, Paula. The inevitable   Later, Rich