Former NBA great Charles Barkley was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol at 1:30 a.m., New Year's Eve, after failing field sobriety tests.  Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel on the TV show "Family Matters", was with him.  Associated Press

 

     Subject Charles Barkley was observed at 01:30 a.m. in Scottsdale Old Town section driving a black 2008 Infinity QX56 SUV through a stop sign and was pulled over for questioning.  Former teen-geek star Jaleel White of "Steve Urkel" fame was sitting in front passenger seat.  After obtaining Urkel's autograph on my "Family Matters" lunch box, I administered field sobriety test to Barkley, transcript follows:

OFFICER:  You have the right to remain silent.

BARKLEY:  Why the hell would I want to do that?

OFFICER:  Anything you say may be held against you in a court of law.

BARKLEY:  Everybody's always holding stuff against me.  There was this girl at the Dirty Pretty Rock Bar who was all over me like Under Armor.

OFFICER:  If you can't afford a lawyer, one will be . . .

BARKLEY:  Hell, I buy lawyers by the case at Costco.  Saves money.

OFFICER:  You were observed driving through a stop sign back there . . .

URKEL:    Charles, try my catch phrase-"Did I do that?"

BARKLEY:  Did I do that?

OFFICER:  I am going to ask you a few questions to determine if you are intoxicated.  You do not have to answer them.

BARKLEY:  Fire away-I'm known for my "freewheeling, controversial style"-TV Guide.

OFFICER:  Identify three nicknames you have used in the past.

BARKLEY:  Uh, Sir Charles, the Round Mound of Rebound, and uh-

URKEL:    Pizza King-you forgot Pizza King!

OFFICER:  Correct, but you are not allowed to answer questions for him.

URKEL:    Dad blast it!

OFFICER:  Name the vice presidents of the United States in inverse order of height.

BARKLEY:  What kind of crazy [barnyard epithet] is-hey.  How'd you do that?

OFFICER:  It's an add-on to our voice recognition software called "Euphematrix"-cleans up your dirty words automatically so I don't have to.

BARKLEY:  Cool.  Let me try it.  "[Verb] you, you [gerund][stock figure from Greek tragedy]!"  Hey-it really works.

OFFICER:  Yeah-saves time at the end of the day.  Where were we?

BARKLEY:  Vice presidents for $200.

OFFICER:  Okay-in the form of a question.  This Vice President said the office wasn't worth a bucket of warm [bodily excretion].

BARKLEY:  Who was Alben W. Barkley?

OFFICER:  That is correct.

BARKLEY:  You know, Barkley is a relative of mine.  You wouldn't want to lock up a direct descendant of Harry Truman's vice president, would you?

OFFICER:  Alben Barkley was white.

BARKLEY:  Can't we get beyond the tired, old racial categories, unless I want to use them?

OFFICER:  Next question.  Who won last year's Super Bowl?

BARKLEY:  Either the Patriots or the Giants.

OFFICER:  You have to pick one.

BARKLEY:  When you've lost $10 million gambling, sometimes you can't keep track.

URKEL:    Did you know Charles picked the Patriots, but meant to say the Giants?

OFFICER:  That's what a lot of people said-after the game.

BARKLEY:  No, seriously.  Do I really have to pay the guy?  It was a slip of the tongue.

OFFICER:  I'm going to ask you to touch your right index finger to the tip of your nose.

BARKLEY:  Piece of cake.  Ow!

OFFICER:  That's your eye.  Now I want you to walk a straight line, while you pat your head and rub your tummy.

URKEL:    I can do that-watch!

OFFICER:  I need to see the suspect do it.

URKEL:  I can do the "Urkel Dance".

BARKLEY:  Look, if it will help get me off, you can tattoo my name on your [gluteus maximus].

OFFICER:  People would think I had a man crush on you.

BARKLEY:  [Pause]  Doesn't every guy?

NEW YORK.

NEW YORK.  NBA officials are expressing concern over a new threat to player safety that has emerged in the past few days-crop circles in "corn rows", the hair style sported by many of the game's premier players.

Attempt at alien communication?

"We're taking this very seriously" said NBA Director of Security Chip Ahlberg. "We're not so great on players going into the stands and beating fans up, so it's good to have something else to focus on."

"You want an autograph?  I'll give you a freaking autograph!"

Crop circles are geometrical patterns that have appeared in cultivated fields around the world.  While individuals have come forward and admitted to perpetrating a hoax with the formations, groups with a looser grasp on reality have nonetheless claimed that the circles are the work of extraterrestrials.

The website http://www.cropcircles.net/ asserts that crop circles are evidence that aliens want inhabitants of the planet Earth to form a single, one-world religion. "They think we spend too much money on bar mitzvahs and Christmas decorations," said the site's webmaster, Arnold Stang. "They also pick up radio signals of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', and it drives them nuts."

"Stop the Christmas music, or we will destroy your planet!"

Rookie Walter Sharpe of the Detroit Pistons was the first to notice a crop circle pattern in the cornrows of his teammate Allen Iverson during a game last week. "I said 'Allen, what's up with the Navajo sun symbol in your braids, man?' He got all bent out of shape and didn't pass me the ball for a week-not even in layup drills."

"Rook, that was one stupid question."

The last attempt by aliens to interfere with professional basketball came in 1996, when a group known as the Nerdlucks stole the talent of Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson and Shawn Bradley in the movie "Space Jam."

 

"Psst-who invited Bradley?"

"We were profoundly shaken by that experience," said NBA Commissioner David Stern. "We're still asking ourselves-why would anyone want to steal Shawn Bradley's game?"

WELLESLEY FALLS, Mass.  In this wealthy suburb of Boston, parents will go to great lengths to ensure that their children get into a good college, even paying top dollar to "college coaches" who counsel the kids on their essays, SAT preparation, community service choices and overall application strategy.

"You've got to completely fill in the little oval with your #2 lead pencil!"

"It means so much," says Marci Hallinan, whose daughter Courtney's first choice was Mount Holyoke College.  "Get into the right school and someday you'll be able to buy a $1.3 million starter home," says the perky blonde who supplements her husband Rick's income by working as a real estate broker.  "If you don't, you may end up pushing a grocery cart through the streets picking up deposit cans."

"If only I'd gone to Tufts!"

If Marci's smile seems a little forced today, it's because Courtney checked on-line last night and found out that she was not accepted from the "early decision" applicants to the prestigious women's college, and wasn't granted "deferred" status to be considered as part of the regular applicant pool, either.  "Flat-out rejected," says Marci, bitterly, and this reporter hears the sound of sobbing floating down from an upstairs bedroom.

"Just go away and leave me to my broken dreams, okay?"

The scene was repeated across town as clients of college coach Ron Dilworth received the bad news last night from Stanford, Harvard, Emory, Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern, among others.  "He got the big goose-egg," says angry father Todd Dremke, whose son Miles applied early decision to the University of Chicago.  "0 for 8."

" . . . bare ruined choirs where late the dweeb nerds sang."

At a cost of six to eight thousand dollars a child, a college coach can do quite well, but "the only thing that counts is your record," says Norton Zeligman, who "ran the table" this year, getting his clients into Yale, Oberlin, Vanderbilt and Georgetown.  "I feel sorry for Ron, but that's the nature of the business."

"Your essay should show you're not just a grade grubber, you're a well-rounded grade grubber."

So Dilworth got the bad news this morning.  He's been sacked, asked to clean out his flash cards, and told that his services won't be needed for the stretch run through the "early action" and general application deadlines.  "I don't think I was given the chance I needed to turn this season around," he said at a sparsely-attended press conference at the high school guidance office.  "I wish these kids the best of luck.  Given their scores in AP Biology, they're going to need it."

"I'm looking forward to spending more time my family, and less with yours."

Dilworth has no job offers at present, but hopes to catch on as a junior college coach in a less-affluent community.  "Some of those schools will take a kid if he fogs a mirror held under his nose and the parents' check doesn't bounce," he noted in his farewell speech.  "Those are my kind of standards."

NEW YORK.  Already facing jail time for a weapons violation, New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress is coming under new fire from women's groups for not tipping lap dancers who serviced him in the Latin Quarter Club where he shot himself in the leg, according to reports in today's Boston Herald.

Burress:  "I can't alk-tay ow-nay--I'm at the adium-stay."

"These are young women who play by the rules and work hard," said Elinor Pnaismith of WTUOF, Women Taking Umbrage Over Football.  "If you're going to quote me, maybe I should rephrase that."

Feagles:  "You want to sit on my lap?  Why?  There's another chair over there."

Burress, who signed a five-year $35 million contract after catching the winning touchdown pass in the Giant's Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots last season, reportedly paid lap dancers the minimum of $20, as opposed to $200 tips lavished on them by other players such as extra-point holder Jeff Feagles.  "These girls are so nice," said Feagles.  "They're a little old to be sitting on somebody's lap, but some people mature faster than others."

Start your own home-based lap dance business!

For his part, Burress was unrepentant.  "I don't see why I should pay in the first place," he said.  "I just axed the girl to sit on my lap and said let's talk about the first thing that comes up."