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There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumbass kids can't compete academically so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks and psychotherapists to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't give a shit what these crackerjack whackjobs tell you-yer kid is NOT autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.

I know a couple of autistic children and let me tell you something they both have in common-they are extremely bright and attentive and-much like Rain Man-have individual talents and abilities that would lay your empty little tyke's video game-addled soul to waste. A truly autistic child may be able to reproduce music he or she hears with perfect pitch-entire classical pieces, the rock opera Tommy, the latest hit Broad-way musical-over and over again. OR tell you instantly upon hearing what your birthday is-what day it has fallen on every year for the last four decades. What the weather was on those days. Who the president was at the time. What the number one song on the radio was just before singing it note for note and word for word. THAT'S an autistic child. Not some fat-assed simpleton whose brain has been fried by television and the Xbox and no proper daily attention from his or her supposedly caring parents.

Maybe your kid is not autistic. Maybe he's just a dolt. And thank your lucky stars for that. Face the facts.

Autism is up and who knows why-parents who wasted time, their brain cells and a lot of healthy DNA on way too many recreational drugs is this doctor's guess-but I refuse to sit here and believe that half the idiotic offspring I come across even amongst my own friends and family are a part of that problem.

I recently heard an interview with the brother of acclaimed author Augusten Burroughs. This brother guy invented the gizmo that allows smoke and a small fireworks display to spazz out of electric guitars onstage. He did it while working as a roadie/techie for the band Kiss. Ace Frehley turned to him one day and said Hey, can you make smoke'n shit fly outta my Axe while I'm playin' it? So this guy did so. Not a huge contribution to society but hey-it is what it is and he made a good living at it. The reason I bring this up is: the interview was about a book this brother had written because when he was about fifty years old he almost completely self-diagnosed himself as having Asperger's syndrome.

In the interview he said that all of his life people thought he was odd. He would talk to people but had trouble making eye contact with them and he knew-somehow, somewhere deep down inside-he was different. Because they wouldn't talk back. They would usually just nod and walk away.

Uh-huh.

Here's the textbook definition of the disease:

Asperger's syndrome is one of several autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Characterized by difficulty in social interaction and restricted, stereotyped interests and activities. People with Asperger's are not usually withdrawn around others, they simply approach others by engaging in a one-sided, long-winded speech about one of their own favorite topics.

Where I come from, we don't call a guy like that a victim of Asperger's. We just call him an Asshole Who Won't Shut The Fuck Up.

You wanna find people who don't think it strange or boring or mind-numbing to listen to you ramble on and on and on about what it takes to plug electronic boxes into electro converters and then into tubeless amplifiers THROUGH a remote-access special effects board and blap blappety blap until shit shoots out of a guitar played by a guy wearing fourteen-inch-high platform-heeled leather boots and a girdle?

Here's the list:

1. The guy in the girdle

2. You

3. People with Kiss T-shirts on

That's it.

You don't belong in the spectrum of autism disorders. You belong backstage with a shitload of AA batteries and a suitcase full of roman candles.

Long-winded and one-sided.

I heard the guy on the radio and believe me, folks, long-winded ain't the