For May 7, 2003 "He knew how to treat a female-impersonator." - Vol. III No. VIII published every other Wednesday

The Buffalo Rock Company does not sponsor The Birminghamster.

Bear-O-Meter Provides Early Warning System For Tide Trustees Dissatisfied Bear Detector   Elmwood Cemetery(JM) In the wake of the embarrassing departure of Mike Price from the head coach's tower at Alabama, the University's Board of Trustees has approved a plan - long in the making - to measure and record the post-mortem reactions of former head coach Paul 'Bear' Bryant, now interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham's West End. "Every time something like [Price's Pensacola Flesh Party] would come up, I'd shake my head and say: Mah daddy mus' be rollin' in his grave right 'bout now," explained trustee Paul Bryant III, "Now we have the means to detect those movements and predict embarrassing behavior before it gets to the media, when we still have a chance to handle the situation 'in the family'." Using sensitive all-weather seismographic equipment at the gravesite, Board of Trustee agents can establish baselines for Bear-rolling during each different season (recruiting season, spring workouts, pro-am season, fall practice, regular season and bowl season) and then establish a system of alerts (Vandy yellow for 'All's Clear', LSU Purple for 'Potential Trouble', Florida Blue for 'Dangerous Rip-Tide' and Tennessee Orange for 'We're F***ed'.) that will let the Board know, in advance, what heinous goings on might besmirch the office of head football coach. "This isn't the first time we've used the equipment, but the board has never approved implementing it as a full-time warning system. The Price incident has apparently changed their minds," said Athletic Director Mal Moore. "Fact is, ever since we launched the search to replace Bill Curry, I've been out there [at Elmwood] on Sunday afternoons reading off the names of candidates and trying to get a read on who Bear was comfortable with. I'd trade sips of whisky as I went through the list, drinking one and pouring the other one into the ground. I'd swear after a while you could feel something. When I came back I brought a stethoscope, too, but I still couldn't get a firm idea. It was only after we fired Dubose that I got all this geological equipment and had it fine-tuned for grave-stirring that we started to get good information. I maintain to this day that the Bear hand-picked Dennis [Franchione] to lead the Tide...which makes it all the more bitter what the Aggies did to us." Moore paused to empty the bottle on his desk and then looked up. "Thank the good Lord we've got a direct line to Bryant now. We can put our troubles behind us and look forward to a great future for the program he worked so gol-danged hard to establish." Pre-Dawn Rumble Was Meth Lab Explosion Satellite Photo   Mentone(DLJM) An illegal meth-amphetamines laboratory exploded in Northeast Alabama at 3:59 Tuesday morning after falling into a sinkhole. At first, officials didn't know what to make of the shaking and rumbling felt over a 100-mile radius, said State Forensic Geologist Ames "Sketch" Claypool. "I guess some folks assumed we'd had an 'earth-quake' [a violent shaking of the ground common in other parts of the world], but it was just another meth lab explosion, only this time below ground in a sinkhole, which caused the shock wave." The underground wave shook people out of their beds as far away as Wetumpka, and LaGrange, Georgia. "Normally a meth lab explosion will register a 3.0 to 3.4 on the Richter scale," said Claypool. "But this one, with an epicenter about 10 miles Northwest of Fort Payne in the piney woods outside Mentone, and about 200 feet below the surrounding grade, sent readings up to 4.9 at some stations." This would tie the existing state record for meth lab explosions set in Decatur in 1991. Regulars at the Waffle House off Exit 209 outside Mentone were still shaken up on Tuesday morning. "My dog, Elvis, felt it coming first. He came and woke me up and I didn't know if it was the Martians or if Jesus was coming back in glory," recalled machine-operater Duane Culbertson. "I heard the rumblin' and felt the shakin' so I stumbled outside - got a cramp right here in my thigh I was movin' so fast - and saw that the chicken shed was all a-bustle. I dared not open the door, I know all them hens gone and laid scrambled eggs." Culbertson slapped his cramped thigh laughing at his joke and immediately winced and sat back at his counter-stool. County Sheriff Mason Grainger said that the former meth-lab, housed in an Airstream travel trailer, was apparently being leased by an unmarried couple at the time of the incident. He speculated that they probably triggered the sinkhole during a particularly rowdy lovemaking session. "And the soil was probably weakened by mutant nightcrawlers created by the spilled chemicals," continued Sheriff Grainger, "we've seen this sort of thing happen before. Serves them right, I say." Investigators say that not much is left of the meth-lab to examine. "We're not quite sure what happened to the lab after it exploded," said DEA agent Russ Bravin. Jason Hervey To Stay In Birmingham Healthsouth VP Hervey   Birmingham() Former Healthsouth Marketing Communications VP Jason Hervey has announced his intention to stay in the Birmingham area and not return to his home in Los Angeles. Hervey, the only known Hollywood actor without a fan website, currently resides near Jeff State's South Campus. "People have been good to me here," said Hervey. "Much better than they treat me in LA. I get the feeling that people joke about me a lot there." Hervey became popular with Birmingham residents as he attempted to put a more human face on the cultish Healthsouth image. Listeners to the Healthsouth radio program have fond memories of Hervey's antics as he constantly regaled Healthsouth CEO Richard Scrushy (pronounced SCROO-SHE) with mispronunciations of medical terms, sports trivia, and fart jokes. As a spokesman for Healthsouth, Mr. Hervey could not have been better. He never used his fame as a child actor on ABC's "The Wonder Years" to gain favor with Birmingham citizens. Most people seemed to like Hervey just because he was so different from Mr. Scrushy. Hervey was clearly unqualified to be an executive with any other company, but he did a good job for Healthsouth. "I got laughed at by an executive in Hollywood when I suggested a show based on my life," said Hervey. "But Richard basically let me do just that. When I wanted to hide things in the digital hospital for patients to find, he thought it was a brilliant idea. He said we could track the stuff with the building's radio frequency id system." Hervey expects that his experience will help him out as he seeks another position with a major Birmingham corporation. "I think a company like Buffalo Rock could use me. Just the other day I drank some of their Ginger Ale too fast and it came out my nose."