John Montgomery Presents This Week's	April 1, 2000	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	The Elian Gonzalez Players, Part 2
	Big Mouths and Small Minds

What's your definition of ugly? Before you answer, understand that I mean Really Ugly. Grotesque, skanky, putrid, maggot-like, puke-inducing, butt-ugly. Here are a few examples:

• Linda Tripp, with a negligee and no makeup, leering and winking at you, trying to be sexy after six martinis, while blocking your only exit with her hulking body.
• Al Sharpton, right after he gets out of bed, before he removes the curlers.
• Justin Volpe's jailhouse-enlarged anus.

The federal government marches into Miami on a search and destroy mission. They find a 6-year-old boy hiding behind his great uncle and other assorted relatives. The feds try to snatch the boy away so they can hand him over to his father, who's on the other side of the city, waiting to take the boy home to Cuba. A crowd surrounds the boy, pissed as hell, ready to rumble, linking arms to prevent the feds from getting to him. Surrounding them are politicians of every stripe, each screaming louder than the next that their list of demands must get carried out immediately or they're going to court. The police are hanging back, eating donuts, having been told this impending riot is none of their business. Diane Sawyer is trying to crawl through the crowd with a microphone to ask the boy to draw a picture of how he feels. Barbara Walters is wondering around in a daze chanting, "This is tewwible, just tewwible!" The boy in the center of all this wishes he were back in the ocean, drowning with his mother.

That's ugly. And it's gonna happen.

At the zoo which houses the Elian Gonzalez players, the cage doors have been sprung wide open. They're all big bad wolves who want to blow each other's houses down and eat each other up. There's not one of them left, not one, who's thinking about Elian's well-being anymore. It's politics and ratings and turf wars and pissing contests. This brewing brouhaha is about to blow. Elian's the one who'll get splattered.

Here's the latest:

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which thinks it is in control, wants Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, to sign papers agreeing to turn the boy over if he loses his appeals in court. Lazaro, who thinks he is in control, says, "I ain't signing no stinking papers, gringo."

Fidel Castro, who thinks he is in charge, announced that Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, is ready to come to the United States with an entourage of 30 people to pick him up. Lazaro and his family, who for months have said they would hand Elian over to Juan if he'd just come over here and get him, changed their minds and said, through their lawyer, that Juan could only have supervised visits, and besides that, he had been "verbally and physically abusive" to his son.

Cuban-American, anti-Castro activists, who think they are in charge, are practicing civil disobedience resistance techniques and are claiming that the Virgin Mary has been showing up in Elian's bedroom mirror. No word on when Mary's son will make a statement to the press.

Diane Sawyer, who thinks she's in charge, subjected Elian to an interview where he said he didn't like anything about either Miami or Cuba. Those were the only intelligent words we heard all week.

Al Gore, who'd like to be in charge, pulled his index finger out of his nose, tested the winds in Florida and said, "Damn! I got to win that state! Now I think Elian ought to stay!"

George W Bush, who's rapidly becoming the most obnoxious, slimy presidential candidate since Richard Nixon, didn't like the fact that he and Al now have the same position. "I am concerned that Al Gore's sudden change of position yesterday may have had more to do with the vice president's political interests than with the best interests of Elian Gonzalez," was Dubya's astute observation.

The local politicians and dignitaries, who think they are in charge, did their best "George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door" imitations. Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas: "We will not lend our respective resources ... to assist the federal government in any way, shape or form to inappropriately repatriate Elian Gonzalez to Cuba." Miami Mayor Joe Carollo: "It is not the responsibility of the Miami Police Department to snatch Elian Gonzalez from his Miami family and be sent back to a Communist regime." Florida International University director Lisandro Pérez: "We now have our own local foreign policy."

Elian, who doesn't have any idea who's in charge, is soon to be a classic schizophrenic. His is pictured above talking to his father on his phone while his great-aunt Caridad whispers in his ear, "Come on now Elian, say good night to the commie bastard!"

Here's my suggestion. Keep Elian here. Ship Lazaro, his wife and that daughter of his who performs daily hysterical crying fits for the cameras, on a leaky boat to Cuba. Pack up all the politicians, stick Cuban cigars up their asses and have them do a circle jerk for Diane Sawyer. And remind all those crowds of rabble-rousing crank-wankers that the last time they got so hot about something was to protest that little dog on the Taco Bell commercials.