Pity poor Bill.

• Author: Durst, Will
• Position: Humor - Bill Clinton, various other political anecdotes - Off The Map - Column

Get this: Pat Boone, the guy who's so white, the Ku Klux Klan is wary of him, has decided his musical future lies in heavy metal. Boone has released an album of metal covers called No More Mr. Nice Guy. And he showed up at the American Music Awards wearing a leather vest over a bare chest festooned with tattoos. (I'm sure they were stick-ons proclaiming BORN TO RAISE HECK.) What's next? His daughter, Debbie Boone, jumps to the Death Row label and shacks up with the likes of the two Ices? AC-DC attempts a comeback with a series of Andre Kostelantos easy-listening faves? Peggy Lee releases a boxed set of the entire Butthole Surfers catalogue? Living in San Francisco, I am often accosted by ex-hippies growing old with the grace of above-ground concrete bomb shelters. But someone has to tell Mr. Boone his only place in heavy metal lies in operating the Metamucil concession at Kiss concerts.

* At the Mall of America in Minnesota today, a group of square dancers were doing the Macarena. It was like seeing mayonnaise on a tortilla. The Clinton Administration has acknowledged that, by failing to run background checks, it allowed a felon with possible ties to the Bonanno organized-crime family to attend a Democratic coffee at the White House. Half the foreign dignitaries Clinton entertains look like they'd be more at home in leg irons than wing tips. But since when does drinking coffee with Billy "Three Legs" Clinton enhance a mobster's standing in the underground? "Hey, Nutso, did you hear Vinnie No Nose had tea with the First Lady? Pretty obvious who's next in line for Capo." Maybe it was a preliminary discussion on matters of national security, like the prompt disposition of some island dictator, if you know what I mean. And what right-thinking American doesn't regard that as a good idea?

* In San Francisco, they're still standing in line for the reissue of Star Wars. Next week, bookstores are going to make copies of Moby Dick available. The first weekend gross for the reissue of Star Wars with four and a half new minutes was $36.2 million, according to studio estimates. Take it with a grain of salt: Studio accountants can prove Jurassic Park never made a cent. Those rubber raptors add up, you know. Since Hollywood always rushes to where lightning last struck, we would be foolish not to expect many more diligently altered twenty-year-old classics to hit the big screen this year:

* Annie Hall: With a new sequence featuring Woody Allen trying crack...