"Did you hear about Betty-Sue and Myron?"

Gossip. It makes the world go 'round. Always has, and it always will. Telling tales out of school, as it were, is the primal stuff of life, whether we like it or not. I met a couple of people for coffee this morning, and we fooled ourselves into believing that we were having a serious conversation. Well, we were, but 90 percent of it was still sheer gossip.

Women get unfairly maligned for being chronic gossips, and the archetypical gossip in song and fable is usually some embittered old crone. Don't believe a word of it. Not that embittered old crones don't gossip, it's just that they can't be held solely responsible for malicious back-biting. Males do their full share. That's a relief to me, for it means I am not alone in my love of evil tales about the behavior of others. Of course, I come by it naturally. One way or another, I've been in the newspaper business for 30 years. Serious journalists like to pride themselves on being above the lowest forms of innuendo nastiness. Piffle. I remember attending a newspaper convention a number of years ago. The convention was packed with scribes, mainstream, underground, big city dailies, and little community papers. What did we spend our time doing along with way too much drinking and speculating about the physiognomies and one's potential chances with assorted females at the convention? Why, we gossiped. We told all the tales that could not be reported in the mainstream media for fear of libel action. We talked about which politician was sleeping with what person he was not supposed to be sleeping with; which politician not only paid for hookers with his government issue Visa card, but was known to the ladies in the calling by his specialty, 'Golden Shower Bob', what noted actress was caught in flagrante delicto with what known underworld figure by her husband, who was afraid to do anything about it, and what female newspaper publisher would go on weekend binges, at some point would have obviously lost bladder control, and then would show up for work on Monday morning in her peed upon clothes, not even having bothered to change or shower.

Sorry, that last one is distasteful, but it is absolutely true. All of the aforementioned are true. And, they all serve to fulfill the primary function of gossip for human beings, and tell us why it has always existed in all societies and why it will never go away -- because gossip makes us feel better about ourselves. When somebody else does something outrageous or scandalous or shocking, it makes us think that we are not so bad after all, or, 'phew' at least I never got caught like that poor bozo did. Gossip is, therefore, good for the self-esteem. It explains why people will voyeuristically watch crap like Jerry Springer. They will watch because, no matter how low they might have gone at moments, they have never stooped to the level of Springer's trash, either on his stage or in his audience. "Get a load of her! Could you imagine ever doing that?"

Gossip also serves to bring a bit of excitement into otherwise fairly hum-drum lives. TV is full of gossip, magazines (even ones like Time and Newsweek which pretend to be serious newsmagazines, but really aren't so different from People, which is not altogether superior to the Enquirer) are full if gossip, daily newspapers, including those ones that once prided themselves on reporting the news, are now filled with huge gouts of showbiz crap concerning the creepy 'Ego-Midget,' his Stepford Wife, and his missing alien baby, what hue the next kid Angelina adopts is going to be, and Britney 'Trailer Park' Spears' latest horrifying motherhood misfortune. Michael Jackson has moved so far into la-la land by now, he doesn't even warrant gossip mag coverage. On the other hand, there is always Macca and Heather. Evidently that one has just begun, and may ultimately lead to gunplay. Stay tuned.

I know gossip and bearing false-witness are deemed to be sins, in which case we are all doomed to hell. Gossip is too exciting to just let it go. Come on all of you who check out The Smoking Gun with any regularity, you know you can't let the site pass without sneaking a look at the collection of mugshots taken of poor notables moments after they were busted. If you don't do that, there is no point in visiting at all.

So, hear any good gossip lately?