Doug Sutherland speaks for himself: "I knew satire was dead the night I walked out of a San Francisco radio station after airing (what I believed to be) a brilliant spoof on the burial industry, "The Motion Sensor Activated Talking Headstone" ("Oh, thank you for visiting; it's so dark and wormy down here...") and opened a Mechanics Illustrated to find a half page ad for "The Motion Sensor Activated Talking Headstone" ("Oh, thank you for visiting; it's so dark and wormy down here...").

"After all, it was I who gave everyone the Electric Fork the Christmas after they received Electric Knifes. The same people demanded Electric Spoons the following year. And the Christmas of the Cordless Phone I really scored with the cutting edge (and, these days, even more timely) Phoneless Cord.

Anyway, after the ad for the Talking Headstone I had no choice but to resort to reality, which, year after year, has become not only harder to believe but astonishingly fertile ground for any humorist to till. (Could there be a more perfect Christmas gift for 2001 than Proctor and Gamble's sensational new battery powered mop, the Swiffer WetJet?)

My rhyming newspaper column, "Doug Sutherland, Minister of Reality" has been published and syndicated by the Sedona Excentric since 1988 (sedonausa.com) and, until recently, I was employed by Clear Channel (the world's largest owner of radio stations) which, I suspect, is run entirely by men without ears."

Dave Schmoll played the piano accompaniment. (pictured bottom right)