Belltown Messenger

I Have Narrowly Escaped Death!
After two months of hospitals, ambulances, and an all star cast of Doctors, I have enough stories to write a mini-series or maybe even an after school special on my successful liver transplant. Starring Clint Eastwood as the determined but very sick liver suffering hero. With Will Farrell and Burt Reynolds as the two bumbling ambulance drivers who get lost in traffic for 2 hours trying to find the U.C. San Francisco hospital that specializes in liver transplants.

Upon arrival at the emergency room, a team of doctors, led by the best liver doctor on the planet, a determined woman nicknamed the Grey Dragon (Meryl Streep) for her icy but caring disposition towards her patients, and her right hand hatchet man Gonesha (Lou Diamond Philips), put our hero on life support and begin the race to beat death (played with evil oozing from his bloody scythe by Keanu Reeves).

Thanks to the help of a rotating staff of nurses with distinct character differences: Cate Blanchett as the Florence Nightingale modeled Nurse Saline, Faye Dunaway as the wise older nurse that reads our hero to sleep with poems by John Keats, and Kate Winslet as the hopeless romantic who falls in love with her patient. With cameos by Hillary Swank as the Sexy Physical Therapist who always wears form fitting argyle pajama scrubs.
- Mickey Buckle

Mickey Buckle Gets Hunter S. Thompson's Liver
In a shocking development right as we went to press, Messenger columnist Mickey Buckle received the liver of deceased gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson in a successful transplant operation. "Hunter's liver had superhuman stamina and might well now live on forever in it s new host body," said spokesman Dr. Raphael Hadoc at the Mile High Liver Center in Aspen.

Mickey Buckle Explained
For the record: Mickey Buckle is the alias for a real person who has written anonymously for the Messenger since 2003. And he really did have a liver transplant, although Hunter S. Thompson was not the donor.

And another thing, the photo that we have been using of "Mickey Buckle" is really a shot of former New York City mayor Abraham Beame. Beame will not sue us because he "passed over" in 2001. But what about Paul Berenson? We "borrowed" his portrait of HST (see above) after a lazy three-second Google image search. Can he prove damages? We gave him a photo credit, and his website sells his art depicting celebrities. "Fair use" is something you could apply here. And HST can't sue him for "defamation by bad art" because he's dead too.

The Messenger art director likes to test the boundaries of copyright law so I guess our team of attorneys better get to work. Oh, and welcome back Mickey!