Jim Buck Every day, Carlos rehearsed his Pirates of the Caribbean routine, and every day, he got a little bit better, until finally he worked up the courage to pursue his dream of becoming a professional stripper. On the train heading downtown, he kept repeating to himself, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." When he arrived at the Chippendale's Review Board, he swaggered through the front door, full of confidence -- which, unfortunately, made their cruel, cruel laughter and rejection all the more painful. Luckily, Carlos lived by the motto, "If at first you don't succeed, jump off the nearest bridge." At that, boys and girls, is the story of Carlos and the Very Bad, No Good, Thoroughly Mixed-Up Career Path.

Heather Corinna I hear that the guards at the Museum of Antebellum History have been trying to be much more careful about checking all the rooms before they lock up for the night. But frankly, my dear, Rhett here doesn't give a damn.

David K I've never understood what folks hope to achieve with these Cecil B. DeMille curtain ensembles -- in their bathrooms no less. But lord knows I'm not going to take it up with this particular homeowner.

  John Calendo Oh, the drama! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, as Liz Taylor told Richard Burton in -- what else? -- Boom. She was listening to the surf pounding into the shore with repeated -- you guessed it -- booms, looking off the balcony in that hungry Liz way with one hand clutching her faltering heart. (She had been given a three-months-to-live prognosis.) And what did this happy-go-lucky Tennessee Williams heroine say? What wise, loving and reassuring words?: "BOOM. BOOM. BOOM -- the shock of every second of still being alive!" Yes, Liz, I get it now. All that seasick life-weariness is conveyed to me by the suffocating heaviness of THOSE GODDAM DRAPES! Sir! You have a choice. Life need not be a cabaret. One's home is not the set of Big Brother. There are moments, precious, few but private moments when, in the words of another Sixties idol, "even the President of the United States must have to stand naked."