Many of you are familiar with the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” In this, my (lucky) thirteenth column, I shall present you with my own version:

The Twelve Columns Before Christmas.

To save time and space — I’m sure you know how this works — the final verse should be sung as follows:

In my twelfth column this year, I (dear readers) gave to thee:

Twelve “Butt Ugly” Lungs,

Eleven Developer Devils,

Ten Cheers for Jesse,

Nine White-Collared “Redcoats,”

Eight Wars on Water,

Seven Sex Offenders,

Six Kids a’Mugging,

Fiiiiiiivvvveee letters: D-U-N-C-Eeeeeee,

Four reasons to wear Sunblock,

Smut, Fluff, Sheep,

Two phony stories,

And my background and history.

The beauty of writing your own version of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” is that you don’t even have to rhyme. Anyone can do it, even a lunkhead like me. In fact, I found writing lyrics to this Xmas carol far easier than composing either of my last two piano concertos. It’s also a bit easier on the ear.

My intent here is to inspire a deep sense of regret in those who missed a column or two prior to this point. I can hear you upbraiding yourself now: “Curse me for a fool, I missed ‘Six Kids a’Mugging!'”

Rest assured, such gems as these will live on in syndication. Count on seeing them more frequently in the years to come than “It’s a Wonderful Life!” My editor tells me they will be holiday perennials (or did I dream that part?)

To demonstrate my sensitivity to impatient people everywhere, in this my column of fall ’98, I’m offering a twelve-column synopsis:

Today’s media has turned sensationalism into a fabulous new genre of journalism and the written word: “Illiterature.” Thanks to the media, I know more about Monica than the Middle East. King Hussein is sick, you say? Well good, I hate the way he’s been running Iraq!

Despite the fact that the “Greenhouse Effect” is a “myth,” December in Iowa is cooking along at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (Centigrade comes later). A 92-mile long chunk of Antarctica (larger than Delaware) has broken off and is floating freely on the high seas. This sucker could sink a fleet of Titanics.

I pray, however, that such a disaster would inspire no Hollywoodizations. With that last overblown barge, James Cameron helped sink the American Film Academy’s few remaining scraps of credibility.

Meanwhile, Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep. The hapless little woolies unwittingly marched off a cliff, so clouded was their vision with cataracts. Ugly farmers rejoice! No longer will you be shunned by discriminating livestock. The sheep are finally going blind. What the unfiltered rays of the sun can’t do for your love life!

Speaking of the ozone layer, now more than ever Aussies are using the flat edge of their boomerangs to scrape off old layers of skin. Mmm-mm! Figures indicate that one in three will contract skin cancer before toddling off to that “Great Outback in the (Ultraviolet) Sky.” Thanks, CFC’s!

Reports about the hole in the ozone and “Greenhouse” came as something of a surprise to many. More accustomed to conventional news, they were better informed and educated on the subject of Monica’s boobies. Yes, the “dumbing down” of America is complete.

Yesterday’s classroom “Dunce” would be considered a “whiz kid” today. Modern “whiz kids” unzip and take their “whiz” into a plastic cup. The subsequent test results tell them whether they’ve been fired from their part-time jobs as phone operators at the “Psychic Pal Hotline.”

But it doesn’t take a “psychic pal” to read the societal effect of the villification of America’s criminals. Our prison population doubles in a decade, and we don’t even blink. “Longer prison terms” and “more and better executions” are the rallying cries of these frightened, angry sheep. And they don’t even have the excuse that they’re blind…

We picket and burn down the houses of our scary new neighbors. And that’s when we don’t lynch them outright.

When someone is lynched outright on the basis of his sexual orientation, our spiritual leaders ease our troubled national conscience by issuing disclaimers: “Hey, all we said was that ‘those people’ are evil and sick and responsible for the moral decay of the country.

We didn’t say to kill the sick little bastard lamb of God. We loved that sinner.”

Yeah. Excuse me while I cough up yet another “butt ugly” lung.

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James O’Donnell is a graduate student in painting, drawing and printmaking from Mesa, Ariz.