Law Enforcement Officials Call for Bulletproof Sleeves:

DETROIT—Citing decades of advancements in torso protection, the National Association of Law Enforcement Officials held a press conference Monday, calling for the development of a bulletproof sleeve.

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Above: A computer representation of the theoretical sleeves.

"Since 1975, the modern Kevlar bulletproof vest has been an integral part of the protective gear worn by police officers," said NALEO spokesman Sgt. Nicholas Arons, an 18-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department. "For some reason, however, both private- and public-sector forces have spent the past 30 years focusing their creative energies on the development of newer, lighter fabrics to protect the same limited portion of the upper body. While safeguarding the torso is extremely important, it's time we began to think about what might be done to protect some other body parts."

According to Arons, two key areas overlooked by the protection industry are the left and right arms.

"We believe a bulletproof sleeve, if properly designed, could protect the shoulder, upper arm, elbow, and lower arm regions," said Arons, who lost both his forearms in a narcotics raid in October. "An officer wearing one of these devices on each arm would find himself doubly protected."

Arons characterized the arms as "crucial" to the successful completion of a police officer's duties.

"Police officers use their arms hundreds of times every day," Arons said. "If they didn't have arms, officers would be unable to brandish or discharge firearms, handcuff perpetrators, operate doors, write speeding tickets, or file reports. A policeman's arms and attached appendages are essential."

OVERWEIGHT ROOMATE TRAVELS ALL THE WAY TO MEMPHIS JUST TO BANG SOME GIRL.

MINNEAPOLIS—Overweight 26-year-old Michael Paulson bid a temporary farewell to the apartment he shares with three friends Monday, in order to make a 900-mile bus trip to Memphis, TN "just to fuck some girl," his roommates reported.

Above: Paulson prepares to travel all the way to Memphis, TN for some chick.

"As we speak, my fat roommate Michael is on a bus heading halfway across the country, just so he can pork some chick he barely knows," Nathan Keller said. "I can't believe how weak that shit is."

According to Keller, the 242-pound Paulson met 23-year-old Lindsay Lewis in a chat room devoted to bluegrass music. While their initial exchanges were music-oriented, they gradually began to write about topics ranging from politics to their love of Tom Robbins novels and golden retrievers.

"So he really did it," roommate Jimmy Gaines said when he saw the living-room chair where Paulson usually sits. "I didn't think the fat bastard was serious. Who goes all the way to Memphis just to dip his wick?"

"I know he's fat, but it's not like he's hideous," Gaines added.

Paulson and Lewis arranged to spend three days together in Memphis, a city Paulson was eager to visit because of its rich musical heritage. In order to pay for the trip, Paulson, a sales associate at Guitar Center, borrowed $300 from Keller.

"For $300, Michael could've gotten a hooker," Keller said. "You'd never catch me spending that much money on tail. I don't care how good she is. I never would have even loaned him the money, except I owed him for the time he loaned me rent."

"Do you think he told her he's fat?" he added.

Gaines said he asked Paulson the same question as soon as he heard about the trip.

"Michael said they'd exchanged pictures,'" Gaines said. "I was like, 'Did you send a recent photo?' He said he had. Then I asked him if Lindsay was fat, too, and he said she was cute. So there must be something majorly wrong with her."

"I should've helped him get laid," Gaines continued. "If he really wanted to, he could've probably fucked someone around here. Gina would probably fuck him if she was drunk. She hasn't said anything bad about him, and she fucks pretty much anyone. The point is: I don't care how fat you are; you don't travel south of the Mason-Dixon line for pussy."

Paulson took a total of six days off from work: two for travel, three for the visit, and one to recuperate after his return.

"We were supposed to get together and jam this week," coworker Tim Sabin said. "Instead, he asked if I'd cover a few of his shifts. If I didn't need the money, I would've refused on principle. I dated this one skank in Eau Claire for a few months, and even three hours was too far to go to get laid. Eventually, she dumped me cold. I learned my lesson: No long-distance ass. I don't care how hard-up you are. Or fat."

Paulson and Lewis have been discussing the possibility of a visit for a month, but they only finalized their plans last week.

"I told him he was crazy to do this just to hook up," Keller said. "You know what he told me? He said he was really excited to go. He was all like, 'She said she's really looking forward to meeting me.' I told him that, at the very least, he should have made her come stay at our place. That way, she pays."

Paulson was reached via cell phone Tuesday, just after 6 p.m.

"I don't want to rush anything with Lindsay," said Paulson, who was about 35 miles south of St. Louis. "We've been e-mailing and stuff for five months, but I still feel like we need to get to know each other a little more. If it happens, it happens, but if it doesn't, that's cool, too."

Added Paulson: "If I were desperate to get laid, I could always have a go at that gross Gina chick who puts her hand down my pants every time she gets drunk."

Alvin shunned by the Animal Community forced to wear Scarlet Letter A.

PASADENA, CA—Well-known frontman for Alvin & The Chipmunks, the singing group that included his brothers Simon and Theodore, Alvin Seville is adored by millions for his intricate vocals on such playful songs as "Alvin's Harmonica" and "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)." The chipmunk celebrates his 70th birthday this month, as well as his 46th year bearing the scarlet letter "A"—the mark of shame that reminds members of the animal kingdom that he is an actor who has adopted the ways of humankind.

Above: Alvin revisits the forest he once called home.

"'A singer of people-songs!'" said the Seville family's former tax accountant, echoing the cries raised against Alvin so many years ago. "'What kind of a business in life—what mode of glorifying Mother Nature, of being serviceable to chipmunks?' Such were the comments bandied between leaf and twig, chattered from branch to branch! And yet, let them scorn Alvin as they would, strong traits of their nature had intertwined themselves with his."

In 1958, members of the Woodland Council forced Alvin to sew a scarlet, gold-embroidered "A" on his sweater. They then paraded him before his forest peers and exiled him to a split-level ranch home on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

"When 'The Witch Doctor' became a success, the animal community seized upon Alvin's 'unholy' communion with humankind," entertainment writer Seth Morris said. "By today's standards, it seems barbaric to ostracize a chipmunk because of a relatively harmless series of novelty recordings. It was a different time then."

According to Morris, Alvin's father sent the chipmunk to Hollywood while still an infant, with the stated intention of following later. The elder animal remained in the forest, however, leaving Alvin and his brothers alone in the human world. It was then that Alvin met Seville, who developed a liking for the chipmunks and adopted them as his own children.

"So moody and mischievous were Alvin and his brothers that people used to joke that their birth father was actually the devil," the accountant said. "But Dave truly loved the chipmunks, and so he was torn, for he knew the human-animal bond to be unnatural."

While Alvin refused to identify the father who'd abandoned him, many say he bears an uncanny likeness to popular entertainer Dale, a singing, dancing chipmunk who arrived in Hollywood around the time of Alvin's downfall.

"Dale could see there was something between Alvin and Dave," Morris said. "Alvin was heartbroken to have been made a pariah, but he bore it stoically, pouring all of his energy into his songs and his television programs."

While the animals publicly rallied against Alvin, many privately expressed admiration for both his bravery and the speed and pitch of his plaintive, almost human vocals.

"Alvin, with a mind of native courage and activity, outlawed from the wilds, wandered among the suburbs and studios of mankind," the accountant said. "The scarlet letter was his passport into regions other chipmunks dared not tread. Fame, adoration, applause! These were his teachers—stern and wild ones—and they made him strong, but taught him much amiss."

For many years, Seville refused comment on his relationship with Alvin.

"Dave felt terrible guilt over luring Alvin from the animal world and subjecting him to so much pain at the paws of his peers," inventor and Alvin costar Clyde Crashcup said. "At one concert, he came very close to taking the microphone and admitting to that which was animal in his own nature, just as Alvin had been forced to own up to his trespasses into humanity. But ultimately, Dave was too afraid."

"It was only seconds later that a lighting rig fell, forming a giant letter 'A' behind the set," Crashcup added.

In the controversial final episode of The Alvin Show, however, Seville appeared before a live studio audience, acknowledged his relationship with Alvin, and tore open his shirt to reveal an "A"-shaped skin discoloration on his chest. Shortly afterward, he died, his final word the plaintive call, "Alllviiin!"

Alvin withdrew from the limelight with the cancellation of his last TV series, Alvin & The Chipmunks. While he has periodically returned to the studio to record covers of such popular songs as "Achy Breaky Heart" and "The Macarena," Alvin has spent the past decade largely in seclusion.

"Alvin made the choice to go back to the suburban home that had once been his place of banishment," the accountant said. "Here had been his sin; here, his sorrow; and here is yet to be his penitence. He has returned, therefore, and resumed of his own free will, the symbol of which I have related so dark a tale. But the scarlet letter has ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and has become something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, and yet with reverence, too."