Welcome to another installment of People in the News, where this isn't brain
surgery, it's celebrity chitchat. Brain surgery is tomorrow. Which is too bad,
because today's lead item certainly calls for a little corrective neurosurgery.
It seems there are people out there who believe Tupac Shakur
faked his own shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Chief proponent
of this theory is rapper Chuck D. of Public Enemy, who held an online forum on
the subject recently. His evidence: the lack of witnesses, the inability of the
police to find the gunman's white Caddy, the lack of an autopsy. D. also cites
"Paul is dead"-style clues in Shakur's work: an album cover picturing him
on a cross (resurrection imagery!) and a producer's credit for
someone named Makaveli (Machiavelli!). Chuck has many such suppositions,
some less airtight than others. As to why Tupac would turn grin reaper, easy --
to escape death threats or
boost record sales. Darned convincing, all right. Squealed one
Internet fan, "He is going through resurrection and will return on EASTER
DAY!" Nurse, anaesthesia!
Advice
Here's how former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw
offered a country-fried slab of motivational speech to students at this
week's Future Farmers of America convention in Kansas City, Mo.: In football
and farming, he said, perhaps still picking chunks of his lunch possum
from his teeth, early success is vital. "You'll know where you're
headed," he said. "You'll know where the creek is. You'll know where the
rocks are. You'll know where the varmints are." And, one hopes, you'll know
what the hell he's talking about.
Scalpel, sponge, Heston
This isn't brain surgery, it's ... well, actually, it is brain surgery.
We were thrown by the presence of Charlton Heston, not a man who springs
readily to mind at the word "neurosurgery." But there he was -- in voice
anyway -- in a Madison, Wis., operating room the other day. Doctors used a tape
of the actor talking about German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to map a
patient's brain during surgery -- the areas stimulated by the tape were the
brain's speech and language centers, and, presumably, the areas that promptly
died were the good-taste centers. "It was
awful," the patient said. "My mind kept wandering." Wandering? Ours would
have been struggling to escape, playing dead or looking for varmints, anything
for a little brain relief. Nurse, anaesthesia!
Compiled by Scott Dickensheets
November 14, 1996
People in the news for Nov. 14, 1996
He's with Elvis now