FEB. 12, 2007

People are strange, but love makes them even stranger. If love makes the world go round it’s only because it’s spinning beneath the heels of people running away from lovesick crazies. News reports generally refer to them as “stalkers” or “spurned lovers.” They run the gamut from prank-calling preteens to wild-eyed, middle-aged astronauts who drive 900 miles in a pair of diapers to pepper spray and possibly kill and dismember a rival lover. Other than the diapers, wig, pepper spray, knife, hammer, and BB gun, not much about Lisa Marie Nowak’s wild ride makes much sense. It’s safe to say she was bat-shit crazy, but it’s also possible she was just in love. Sometimes the difference between the two is indecipherable. Love, like any respectable intoxicant, tends to addle the senses. People in love may act normal, but beneath the surface they’re drunk on a frothy brew of emotions and pheromones. Add a little insanity to that mix and you get Nancy Kerrigan in a knee brace, Mary Jo Buttafuoco in ICU, and Nicole Brown Simpson in the morgue. Those are, of course, extreme cases, but they all involved some sort of twisted logic. Lisa Marie surely had her reasons too. She also had a plan that included along with the items mentioned above, latex gloves, rubber tubing, and trash bags. In other words, she was crazy in love, but not so crazy she couldn’t provision herself with an array of weird items that made her seem even more crazy. Rubber tubing? A BB gun? Damn, this chick is good. It’s like premeditated insanity. Any normal person with an MS in aeronautical engineering would have at least brought a shotgun and a wood chipper. A BB gun however, is pretty much the key that unlocks the dressing room door at The Montel Williams Show – a little nest egg in case the whole kidnapping/murder/dismemberment thing didn’t work out. What a memorable Valentine’s gift that would have been. Certainly beats boiling the Easter Bunny. Rest assured however this isn’t the last you’ll hear of Lisa Marie. Her ratty-ass mug will be back clogging up your daytime TV quicker than you can whistle the tune to “Crazy.” So just remember while you’re out there birddogging your next true romance that being too serious can be a serious problem. If, in light of recent events, you want to keep it on the light side, this Saturday you can check out Cornell Hurd on the deck at Central Market North. Cornell may be dressed in black, but he’s all sweetness and light when he’s onstage and his band features some of the best country musicians in town. They’re sure to keep the world spinning beneath your feet even if the lovesick crazies don’t.