Well, Mercury has finally gone direct, after a long and irritating period of crossed wires and bent feelers--what better to do on a slightly overcast day of no consequence than to celebrate the art of communication by sending monkey mail to my beloveds?

Do it today! I recommend recording a Monkees song in your own voice and sending it to a loved one or other. Something lilting, like "Sometime in the Morning," or maybe an obscure Mike Nesmith song like "If I Ever Get to Saginaw Again." Everyone is SURE to love it, and if you don't believe me, write me and I'll send you one myself.

Feeling spiritual? Visit Adam and Steve, who can share with you all about God's message of love, which means that you can have sex with total strangers as long as you drag them to church the next day. Move over, Jack Chick!

And here: In honor of the two pregnant ladies who were at a dinner party I attended over the weekend, I found some guidelines about unfortunate meanings behind some baby names. I am not having a child, but I did listen, at the dinner party, to a LOT of information about the process, so it's possible that I may be pregnant by proxy. I hope not.

I told the Keelhauler how arduous I had found the conversation, and he topped it with a tale of his own weekend, which involved being stuck on a boat with a relative stranger whose main leisure activity is sex tourism. "What a culture!" the guy said, in awe. "Walk down the street, girls--beautiful girls--swarm all over you. The women just want to cater to the men..." What a culture, indeed. The Keelhauler was not interested in that conversation, although I did make a failed attempt at prying details from him. The only thing I learned was that if you are in Thailand as a sex tourist, you should bring along a bag of quarters. I'm not sure why. Maybe the streets are lined with slot machines.

It's worth asking about, anyway.

Star of the day. . .Da whole SALT & nothin but da SALT