Thursday, Nov. 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Welcome to another installment of People in the News, where this isn't brain surgery, it's celebrity chitchat. Brain surgery is tomorrow. Which is too bad, because today's lead item certainly calls for a little corrective neurosurgery. It seems there are people out there who believe Tupac Shakur faked his own shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Chief proponent of this theory is rapper Chuck D. of Public Enemy, who held an online forum on the subject recently. His evidence: the lack of witnesses, the inability of the police to find the gunman's white Caddy, the lack of an autopsy. D. also cites "Paul is dead"-style clues in Shakur's work: an album cover picturing him on a cross (resurrection imagery!) and a producer's credit for someone named Makaveli (Machiavelli!). Chuck has many such suppositions, some less airtight than others. As to why Tupac would turn grin reaper, easy -- to escape death threats or boost record sales. Darned convincing, all right. Squealed one Internet fan, "He is going through resurrection and will return on EASTER DAY!" Nurse, anaesthesia!
Advice
Here's how former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw offered a country-fried slab of motivational speech to students at this week's Future Farmers of America convention in Kansas City, Mo.: In football and farming, he said, perhaps still picking chunks of his lunch possum from his teeth, early success is vital. "You'll know where you're headed," he said. "You'll know where the creek is. You'll know where the rocks are. You'll know where the varmints are." And, one hopes, you'll know what the hell he's talking about.
Scalpel, sponge, Heston
This isn't brain surgery, it's ... well, actually, it is brain surgery. We were thrown by the presence of Charlton Heston, not a man who springs readily to mind at the word "neurosurgery." But there he was -- in voice anyway -- in a Madison, Wis., operating room the other day. Doctors used a tape of the actor talking about German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to map a patient's brain during surgery -- the areas stimulated by the tape were the brain's speech and language centers, and, presumably, the areas that promptly died were the good-taste centers. "It was awful," the patient said. "My mind kept wandering." Wandering? Ours would have been struggling to escape, playing dead or looking for varmints, anything for a little brain relief. Nurse, anaesthesia!
Compiled by Scott Dickensheets
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