Off-Kilter

This Just In: Truth Is Still Stranger Than Fiction: The flood tide of weird year-end analyses continues with the National Anxiety Center’s list of 1997’s “most dubious news stories.” The winners include a March article about a 15-year-old California boy who was accused of cruelty to animals after several fruit flies died during his science fair experiment and an October story about the National Park Service spending $330,000 to build an earthquake-proof outhouse--in Delaware.

Too-Much-Information Department: Memo to Jim Messina: Go to church right now, and thank God that you no longer sing with Kenny Loggins. Because he is a major freak. In an aptly titled book,”The Unimaginable Life” (Avon, 1997), Loggins and his second wife, Julia (whom he met when she was hired to give him a high colonic), share more than we ever wanted to know about their love life, including the time Julia made a quilt from her old panties, T-shirts and camisoles. The book also describes how she gave birth to their daughter while Loggins sang a tune called “Birth Energy” with a 25-woman choir that repeatedly chanted, “I am opening, I am opening up.”

OK. We are throwing, we are throwing up.

Bjorn to Be Wild: If you want international news, you can turn to the front page and read about Bosnia, or you can come here for the really important stuff, such as a recent Associated Press report about a Swedish biker who was riding to a motorcycle-gang clubhouse and didn’t want anyone to think he was carrying a gun . . . so he drove there naked. In December. In Stockholm. Startled motorists notified police, who nabbed the guy en route. We know there’s a joke in here somewhere about what happened at the police lineup, but we can’t think of one, so maybe Kenny Loggins will write a song about it instead.

Snooze News: Ellen DeGeneres must be wondering whether she ever should have left the closet. First, Spy magazine named her “Most Annoying Woman” of 1997, then David Letterman aired a top 10 list saying everyone is sick of hearing she’s gay. Now she finds herself atop the Boring Institute’s annual list of “most boring people” (runners-up included Paula Jones, Marv Albert, the royal family, Jenny McCarthy, the planet Mars and Robert Downey Jr.). It probably doesn’t help that Vice President Al Gore recently praised the show. He’s pretty much a Boring Institute lifetime achievement award winner.

Believe It or Not: We ripped off this item from Premiere Radio, which stole it from the Weekly World News, which might have pulled it from thin air, so we can’t vouch for its authenticity, but we had to share a report that says bus drivers have higher-than-average blood pressure. Part of it is the constant stress of traffic. But experts say another factor is that bus drivers can’t use the restroom as often as they’d like, an understandable cause of hypertension.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “New Pumpkin Pie Perfume Drives Men Wild, Says Expert” (Weekly World News)

The No. 2 turn-on, according to the story, was a combination of doughnuts and black licorice.

* Roy Rivenburg can be reached by e-mail at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com.

Sources: Wireless Flash