Civic Center removes possessed urinal after numerous complaints

CIVIC CENTER, TUESDAY - Maintenance crews at the Asheville Civic Center removed a urinal which event patrons claimed had supernatural powers, said Howard Penland, head of the Civic Center's Engineering Team.

"We've had complaints about this particular urinal in the past, but it wasn't until the [March 26] RatDog concert that things became unmanageable," said Penland. "Up until that point, we had attributed the trouble to strong drink, but at RatDog, several members of my crew witnessed the urinal in action."

According to Penland, the urinal actually shouted at a concert-goer, precipitating an argument that continued for half an hour.

"The hippie had a point: You can't just let a urinal call you anything it wants or say things about what your mother does in Hell," said Penland.

Penland added that the removal of the urinal resulted in relative calm at the recent Widespread Panic concert.

The Employee and the Haunted Urninal
Model: Matt Goforth
Shirt and pants available at: Macy's
Tie: "The employee I replaced hung himself with this tie right here in this very bathroom."
Tie also available at: The Gap

Theme of 2007 Arts Council's fashion ball?
Colorless

Procol Harum tribute band "Paler Shade of White" providing house music

ASHEVILLE, MONDAY - "White is Trite" is this year's marketing slogan for the downtown Asheville Colorless Ball, according to event organizers.

While white used to be considered the new gray, this year it has been upstaged by a total lack of color.

Each year, the event's organizers and soiree sponsors get inspired by watching their kids have all that pastel fun at Easter, so they began following the act by throwing a colorful bash.

But for 2007, the event - which was admittedly getting a little whiter every year - will go totally "balls to the waltz" colorless.

"Vamp is out, this year everyone is going vapid," said one Colorless party hostess. "Red is dead, and insipid is the new white. The fashion-forward woman will be turned-out in opaque, translucent, or perhaps she won't even show up at all, which would make an appropriate statement for this kind of event."

The series of quasi-charitable weekend bashes are sponsored by lots of fabulously bored - but highly ambitious - people who weren't popular in high school or didn't stand out at their proms. Now that they have more power than they do creativity - and more money than they do taste - they are making up for their own banal history with a vengeance and having a ball in the process.

"Making up for it" is no overstatement. Retail cosmetic counters are slammed, according to one woman who works at the Asheville Mall and has been selling boatloads of ordinary bleach - repackaged to look like fancy botanical-based moisturizers that require no testing of mice or bunnies.

"The hardest part of disguising bleach as organic face products is not the smell," explained Fanny Glore, a cosmetologist who chose to keep the name of her product line anonymous.

"Or even the texture. We just buy unscented bleach, add a few drops of essential oil to it and mix in some cornstarch and nobody is the wiser."

"If you dribble it on somebody's clothes, it won't matter," Glore continued, "because everyone is totally colorless so there's nothing to accidentally bleach out."

Ticket holders for this year's events will attempt removal of pigment from skin, nails, teeth, tongues, lips, eyes, and "what-not," according to party organizers. For partygoers, complying with a unified lack of color for this year's Ball is half the fun.

"Getting drunk being the other half," quips Romero Romeo, Chief Mixologist for the Colorless Ball, who has conjured up a signature colorless drink with a see-through umbrella in it to be served at Colorless events.

"I call it the Bland Bombshell," says Romeo. "Two parts vodka, one part water, a splash of club soda, garnished with a pearl onion, a little bleach."