Another Questions and Answers Column, Written at the Last Possible Minute Before the Deadline
First published 3/24/1999

Here they are: still yet even more questions and answers for your education and amusement -- cutting-edge infotainment for the 21st century!

Q: Paul, I've seen T-shirts and bumper stickers with the slogan "Question Authority." Should I question authority?

A: For God's sake, yes! If that's what the T-shirt tells you to do, definitely, you should question authority!

Q: What did you think of the Academy Awards?

A: I thought it was pretty boring this year. It's always boring, actually. This is why the Oscars have never won an Emmy -- also, because then they'd have to make a movie about the Emmies and give it an Oscar, and then the universe would implode into some kind of a black hole.

The best part of the Oscars was watching people try to laugh at Whoopi Goldberg. You've got the finest actors in modern American cinema together in one room, but nobody can manage to fake a convincing laugh at Whoopi's twelve-hundredth Bill Clinton joke of the evening. Except for Roberto Benigni, who doesn't count because he doesn't speak English, and besides he laughs at everything.

I thought James Coburn deserved an Oscar, but not for Affliction. Who ever heard of that? Rather, he should have got an Oscar for How to Beat the Slots at Vegas -- a stunning tour-de-force of glitzy whimsy! Instructional without being preachy, it promises only to make us better gamblers, but somewhere along the way it makes us better people. Once again, the Academy has shunned the plucky independent producers and their non-conformist experimental gambling instructional videos, and I for one am outraged.

The best thing that could have happened at the Academy Awards, I think, would be for that giant Oscar statue to come to life and go berserk, and the greatest stars in Hollywood would have had to join together and use their powers to fight it. Maybe next year.

Q: Paul, how many pairs of jeans do you own?

A: I own three pairs that I wear and about four pairs that are perfectly good but don't fit because I'm too fat now. I've been saving them for years, just in case I take off the weight; but if anybody wants them come over to my house and pick them up, because I'm afraid the next time I'm going to be a 32 is about the second week of decomposition.

Q: If something is very hip, or typical of the era, should you say it's "very 90's"?

A: No. Most of the 90's are over. Saying that something is very 90's no longer mean's it's "now." It means it's something that is either passé or a recent nostalgia item. In fact, you shouldn't even say something is "very 90's"; instead you should wrinkle your nose and say it's "s-o-o-o 90's."

Some examples of some things that are s-o-o-o 90's: grunge music, Seinfeld, nose-rings, webcams, the Body Shop, Wired Magazine.

I don't know what you're supposed to say to indicate something is hip or current or typical of now. Maybe that it's very zeroes? Or very 2K or millennial? I like "hey, that's very 21st," but I doubt that'll catch on. In any case, don't worry; someone will come up with an expression within a year or so.

Q: God forbid, what if Nazis learned voodoo?

A: If you were a voodoo Nazi, I imagine you'd walk barefoot over burning books.

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