INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Downtown Diary

Rocky the Cat with an Attitudeô and I were walking down Meridian Street outfitted in the latest in gulag-wear - a plain black down jacket for me, a plain black quilted jacket for him. A woman approached and began pointing her finger at Rocky. "I know you! I know you!" she cried. "I swear I know you!" She then put her chin in her hand in thought. While she pondered how she knew Rocky, I steeled myself for the usual: Person on street recognizes Rocky from NUVO Newsweekly; Rocky gives person autograph; as we walk away, Rocky comments upon how much more famous he is than me; then, Rocky"s concluding soliloquy upon the pressures of fame. "Yes! That"s it!" the woman finally exclaimed. "You"re "the_big_r" from the onion.com personals!!!" The fur on Rocky"s face turned red from embarrassment. He looked shiftily at me, then said, "Madam, I am sure you are quite mistaken," and walked away quickly. I caught up with him and asked, "Hey, what was that all about?" He replied nervously, "Well, you see, it"s like this: I was on the Web searching on, er, gogol.com, I mean google.com, for, shall we say, that is, I needed an onion to attract a nose I"d lost to the overcoat I was wearing, so to speak, ahem, at any rate I stumbled upon the onion.com satire Web site, and, well, you know, the rest is history." "Rocky! You"re not making any sense at all!" I laughed. "OK, OK, OK, I put a personals ad on onion.com under the name "the_big_r." Are you happy now?" he huffed. "Casanova! Always on the prowl! Don"t you ever stop?" I laughed. "As a matter of fact I don"t." He then jumped onto a newspaper box and, poking me in the chest with his paw, said, "And you, dear fellow, would be well advised to take a lesson in self-promotion from me, the master of love!" Editor"s Note: Rocky"s personals ad still may be online at onion.com. His picture was removed as it "violated a policy," but the personals ad can be found by searching for "the_big_r."