COLUMN: Little Green Men

It's all my parents' fault.

When I was in fourth grade, my folks got me my first computer. What they thought to be a fantastic teaching tool instead pulled me straight into the social abyss of adolescent nerd-dom.

The facts are indisputable. Yes, I have seen "Star Wars" more times than I care to admit. Yes, I had a Dungeons & Dragons character named "Fokstarr." Yes, I ALWAYS was last picked in gym class.

And like all good nerds of my day, I was deep into science fiction, the paranormal, and pretty much anything and everything that went bump in the night.

I've never understood this about myself. I guess I'm a natural-born skeptic. I was the first kid in my group of friends to call Santa's bluff. When all my buddies were going nuts over pro wrestling, I was in the background, scoffing.

To this day, whenever I witness anything hokey or unbelievable -- from televangelists to psychics to weird e-mails claiming I can increase the size of my nether regions -- I'm usually the first person to stand up and (in the confines of a family newspaper) yell "Cow defecation!"

Yet, despite my inherent skepticism about most things in life, I AM a firm believer in little green men. True, there is more physical evidence to support the existence of the Easter bunny than there is to support life outside our planet -- but I don't care.

Look, the universe is one big place. I mean REALLY big. It's the Monster Thickburger of existence. There are MILLIONS of stars out there -- and to think that their only purpose in life is to set the mood when we're out parking with Little Suzie is ridiculous. We can't be alone, we just can't be.

There's a fundamental flaw with all this, though. It just so happens that, within the global community of Folks Who Believe in Outer Space Hocum-Pocum, 90 percent of our club's card-carrying members are, to use the technical term, complete and total nutbags.

Let's get one thing straight: Just because I believe extraterrestrial life is a possibility does NOT mean I believe the aforementioned extraterrestrials have little better to do with their interstellar lives than pop 'round to Nowheresville, Ohio, and abscond with plump, middle-aged housewives to perform creepy nether-region experiments on.

Yet, big shocker, these are the only examples of "believers" who show up in press -- usually on the front of the Weekly World News, usually claiming that aliens have impregnated them, and usually somehow also involving Elvis.

Every club needs a gathering place, and the wayward home for cosmic nutbags of all shapes and sizes can be found nightly on your radio dial. "Coast To Coast," the infamous overnight radio talk show, is without doubt THE most entertaining program you can possibly find.

Broadcast locally on WOC 1420, hosts George Noory and the legendary Art Bell are the ringmasters to a Cavalcade of Crazy. Rather than mock the show, I instead made a point of listening this week and writing down some of the stuff I heard. Here's a random sampling:

(1) "Hi! Long-time listener, first-time caller. I'm a long-haul trucker, and I just love your show. ... Now, I'm also a clairvoyant who can communicate with the shadow animals."

(2) "Well, George, I think the truth is obvious. Anyone who looks at the news can surmise that the Prophet Yahweh is working hand-in-hand with the Reptilians."

The REPTILIANS? I've already learned from this show to be afraid of shadows, jet contrails, ghosts, the air and ESPECIALLY the government -- now I have to worry about lizards??? Folks, I get PAID to write comedy, and I couldn't begin to top this stuff.

Sadly, though, I'm such a nerd that I've got to end this column by admitting that I actually DO know who "The Prophet Yahweh" is.

He's just your average everyday old man who lives in Vegas ... oh, and he can pray to the skies and cause UFOs to appear on command. Don't believe me? There's video on prophetyahweh.com. It's a little cool and a whole lot of crazy, and it makes my nerd arm-hairs stand on end.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my busy life of video-game playing, sky watching, and girlfriend not-having.