"Knock, Knock."

"Who's there?

"Orange."

"Orange who?"

"Orange Shirt Day is today!"

Stop throwing produce. I promise, no more knock-knock jokes.

Summer has no shortage of holidays. Things are spaced fairly well, with Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day segmenting the summer party season effectively.

However, June gets the short end of the stick. There's really not much to look forward to this month. For you Army folks, and patriots in general, there's Flag Day, but you just don't hear about big Flag Day barbecues and beer blasts.

Into this void, in 1994, strode Gene Sugano (pictured, left), Kirk Stock, John Nichols (pictured, below right), and Jon Gudgel. It all started with befuddlement about Flag Day. They didn't know, at the time, what the purpose of that holiday was (it's the birthday of the U.S. Army), and that got them to thinking about other holidays ... and then pondering creating a holiday of their very own. They decided to place it on the Friday after Flag Day, to make it easy for everyone to remember.

Most holidays have a characteristic garb of some sort. Memorial Day and Labor Day have the muscle shirt and beer gut, the Fourth of July has all manner of pseudopatriotic atrocities, etc. Why not have a holiday that's actually centered around its signature "look?" That would obviate the necessity for creating any other reason to celebrate.

Thus, Orange Shirt Day was born.

Back in '94, orange shirts weren't easy to find. They were primarily the province of convicts and road crew workers. Thus, the comparative rarity of the attire added a certain cachet to the celebration.

Now, orange is a "hot" color. It's found in ties, bikinis and beach wear, T-shirts, socks and all manner of other clothing. This fits in with the growing popularity of the Orange Shirt Day holiday. It has grown from a "secret" celebration mainly confined to college groups on the West Coast to a, well, slightly better-known phenomenon.

Every good holiday has its characteristic foods, also, and Orange Shirt Day is no exception! The favorite treats are floats made with orange sherbet and orange soda. Snack foods, of course, MUST be oriented around cheese puffs, Cheez-its, and similar foodstuffs bearing colors not found in nature.

Lest you think this occasion is to be taken lightly, take note: Those who do not observe Orange Shirt Day are forbidden from consuming potato salad on the following Saturday, Potato Salad Day. This is a serious stricture, although I'm not quite sure what the penalty might be for violation.

So get into your closet, pull out something that's visible from space, and celebrate Orange Shirt Day! It can't hurt, and it's another great reason to drink excessively and act up.

Speaking Of Acting Up ...

The residents of Berkeley, Calif., have ever been known for their levelheaded approaches to societal problems and their rock-ribbed conservative viewpoints.

Wait, sorry, that's Dallas. Berkeley's full of nutcases. They're proving that even more lately. After Sept. 11, they were the first into the streets with ill-considered "antiwar" demonstrations, full of the sort of random hugginess found only in people whose touch with reality went down the toilet with the bongwater.

Now they're going after coffee. Attorney Rick Young has turned in a petition with 3,000 signatures, asking that an issue be put on the November ballot that would mandate that all coffee brewed for sale within the city limits be made only from organic, shade-grown, or Fair Trade certified beans.

I'm all for this, at least as far as it applies to Berkeley residents. Those "organic" beans, not to mention the others, generally cost half again what my sacks of Colombian beans do, which will thus gradually deplete the wallets of the Berkeleyites. Perhaps, over time, this will decrease the amount of dough they can fork over to PETA and all those other organizations that are bound and determined to make me feel better about myself as long as I'll adhere slavishly to their dictums and buy their overpriced tote bags.

Tattoo You

Two men in eastern Iowa are suing their favorite radio station for $150,000 after they had the station's call letters tattooed on their faces as part of what they thought was a promotional stunt for which they'd be paid $30,000 a year for five years.

They claim to have met with the station management prior to getting the tattoos to make sure the offer was kosher, but the station's not talking.

This is not the first one of these cases to come across the Weird Wires of late, so let me offer this Weird Safety Tip to all of you out there: If a contest requires any form of permanent disfigurement, it's probably a bad idea to participate. Go play bingo.

Mongo Movie Of The Week

Hopefully, you all ran out and got "Hell Comes to Frogtown" after it was featured in my last edition, and hopefully you enjoyed it. Such will not be the case this time around.

Presented for your approval this week: "The Crawlers," a 1993 offering that would have made Ed Wood proud. Production values? We don't need no stinking production values. Acting? It's overrated. Just get out there and SCREAM!

The movie closes with a miniature sequence that is quite possibly the worst in cinematic history. Ray Harryhausen should rise from his couch and burn all extant prints of this movie in retribution.

That said, it's an incredible party movie. "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fans, or just those who like to mock bad cinema, will have yuks aplenty at the expense of the hapless cast and aesthetically impaired director. It's worth a rent or cheap buy just for the laugh value.

So, how's things out your way? Any odd holidays to tell me about? Don't forget, I STILL need your weirdest, most fattening recipes for an upcoming column. Also, feel free to send in your most creative ideas for peanut butter sandwiches. You may find yourself immortalized in these very pages! Drop me a line.

Previous Stories:

• May 31, 2002: Dollars And Nonsense
• May 24, 2002: Beware The Food Police
• May 17, 2002: Don't 'Bee' Cruel
• May 10, 2002: The Weird Road Trip
• May 3, 2002: The Wild, Wild Web
• April 26, 2002: The Weird Is In Here
• April 19, 2002: The Weird Mating Game
• April 12, 2002: What's Wrong With The Food?
• March 29, 2002: We're Eating More Peeps!