Urge to Kill

    On his return from lunch a few days ago a doctor was told by his nurse that a man was waiting to see him.  "Send him in," he said.  The patient, a young man, had been drinking but was not drunk.  But he was badly disturbed.  "I've got to kill somebody," he said.

    The doctor, stalling until he could determine if the young man might become violent, said his job was to save people, not to help them destroy others.

    "I'm sick," the young man said, "I know it."

    The doctor said he should see a psychiatrist.  But he said as long as he was there he'd check him out.  He told him to go into an adjoining room and undress.  If he had a weapon, the doctor reasoned, he'd thus be disarmed.

    MEANWHILE, THE DOCTOR quietly phoned the sheriff's office, gave his name and address, and explained the circumstances.  "I'm sorry, you're about 100 yards out of our jurisdiction," was the reply.  "You'll have to call the police."

    He did and was asked, "Did he do anything?"  the doctor said no.  In that case, he was told, no action could be taken.  So the doc went through the formality of an examination and let the young man walk out.

    He has been watching the papers but so far the young man apparently hasn't done anything.

    A MAN WHO becomes exceedingly squirmy at TV commercials was delighted to receive recently as a gift from his daughter a device which, by pressing a button, cuts off the sound.  To paraphrase the cigarette pitchman, he has been watching more and hearing less.  But all is not serene.  His wife misses the commercials and now tries to read the announcers' lips as they speak.

    INDIVIDUALIST
A bearded young beatnik
    sits in a gutter,
Writes beatnikal poems
    perversely on butter-
His pen never slips through
    maybe it oughter.
    JOHN R. McCARTHY

    ANYONE ELSE notice that yesterday was the third consecutive Monday it rained?  It's beginning to look like a conspiracy.  And  that the rock and roll radio stations are sneaking in a little real music?  No trend yet, merely a  hint that maybe one day junk music will disappear . . . Speaking of which, a news release from Slot Machine-ville begins, "To combat the trend of bare bosom productions along the famed Las Vegas Strip-"  Who's fighting?

    QUOTE & UNQUOTE — A businessman moaned to a friend, "Even the people who have no intention of paying  have stopped buying!" . . . Overheard exchange in a  downtown building, one young man to another:  "I don't like a guy who has will power."  "Me neither" . . . A reluctant news photog assigned on the spur of the moment to cover the arrival of a Presidential hopeful remarked, "You know these jet planes are a menace — a candidate can come out here on his coffee break!"

    EVERY MORNING  a woman goes to Echo Park and feeds a white goose, one of several which inhabit the north end of the lake.  Geese are notoriously unfriendly but this one responds to her call.  A year ago she found it with an injured wing, probably by  a rock thrown by a youngster.  She adopted it and helped it learn to swim.  They've been buddies since . . . Birdwatchingwise  (I had to get it out of my system), Cliff Jackson of Mission Hills confirms a situation which exists also in West L.A. — the failure of the cedar waxwings to appear for their annual January ritual, the violent stripping of the Pyracantha berries.  Only a few showed up and the berries remain.  Maybe the birds are all mixed up, too.