Whatever Happened To...

    If it wasn't for this man, you probably would have spent a lot more of your Saturday mornings NOT wrestling with the urge to throttle the life out of some poor, dim-witted teenager for no good reason.

    Yes.  It's Dustin Diamond --former child Über-geek "Screech" from the smash-hit television show, Saved by the Bell (the show that launched the film careers of...  umm..  well...  nobody). 

    How about this?

    It's Dustin Diamond --the deliverer of the most holy and ultra-righteous, geek-beating smackdown of Ron Pallilo (aka: Arnold Horshack) in the history of televised former child-star exploitation. 

    Anyway, earlier this morning, I was watching the local news, and I damn near spit out my coffee when I learned that Screech had apparently escaped the relentless, hounding, Hollywood paparazzi to settle for a much simpler life in the sleepy, lakeshore village of Port Washington, WI.  Yes, my friends, it seems Screech has become a Cheesehead. 

    How amazing?  I'm like almost famous.  Screech's house is just up the road from me.  Unfortunately, thanks to the efforts of The Man, the bank has since foreclosed on Casa Screech, and now Mr. Diamond is scrambling to raise the neccessary $250,000 so as to not become a homeless, imported Cheesehead.  However, rather than bitch-slap Ron Palillo into insanity, Dustin Diamond has resorted to selling t-shirts for $15 ($20 if you'd like one autographed) in an effort to Save Screech's House. 

    Now, all laughing aside for the moment, Dustin Diamond's story is a bit of a bummer, actually.  And in this day and age of our country's current health care state, the Hollywood residuals of a mediocre Saturday morning television show wouldn't support most former child-actors' Vicodin and transvestite prosititute habits, much less cover the hospital bills resulting from any sort of medical crisis.  Indeed, it's out there for a Screech. 

    The thing is, as lousy of an actor as I think he is, during the interview, he seemed like a genuinely normal and decent human being, and a nice guy who's in a pretty hefty world of panic.  Most child actors seem to eventually wind up on some police blotter somewhere, but Dustin Diamond's kept his nose clean, and he's just doing his best to play the crappy hand dealt to him.     

    Now, as for me, I'll probably buy a shirt.  I'd like to keep him in Wisconsin for the sheer selfish reason that, so long as he's living here, there's a chance --albeit slim-- that I will walk into a strip club and actually see Screech getting a lap dance.  How cool would THAT be? 

-DP