Rama

The more you pay for your seat, the wetter you'll get, promisedfund-raiser organizers. No, it wasn't a front row seat to free Willy as Michael Jackson sang "Will You Be There," but there was something of Jackson and plenty of water, all for a great cause. The event? "Splash-O-Rama: The All Wet '50s Musical" Sunday in Laguna Beach to benefit the AIDS ServicesFoundation of Orange County.

Demonstrators on Saturday swarmed entrances to the largest Boy Scout event of the year in Orange County, protesting the organization's exclusion of homosexuals and boys who refuse to profess a belief in God. About 35 protesters formed lines at the Scout-O-Rama in Fountain Valley. They stood along the roadside holding up signs denouncing religious extremism and bigotry that Scouts and their parents could read as they passed by in their cars.

Abigail Goldman was wandering the Internet when she came across the model train website that changed her life. She noticed all the miniature figures were engaged in wholesome activities - waving to strangers, helping neighbors. Then she had a dark thought: Maybe those characters could be made to do violent, unspeakable things. They could populate tiny, twisted dioramas of her own design, snow-globe-sized worlds of murder and mayhem. "I said, 'Oh, look at all the little people!

One certainly is the loneliest number. There isn't a single suitable partner for Rama, and there's nothing he can do about it. He's either too tall and heavy or too short and slight, depending on whom he's fixed his fancy on. The problem is, Rama is unique. Really. He is one of a kind, a man-made creature, a beast of burden that doesn't exist naturally--in fact, would not exist at all if a bunch of scientists hadn't cooked him up in a laboratory in the desert.

WASHINGTON - At times it seemed the overnight fight club in the U.S. Senate just wouldn't end. For nearly 20 hours, senators considered more than 600 amendments, from lofty to less so, and voted on dozens. The marathon vote-a-rama did not end until just before dawn Saturday, when Democrats stumbled across the finish line and passed their first federal budget plan in four years. In a final squeaker, the chamber voted 50 to 49 to approve a $3.7-trillion budget blueprint that would raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, trim spending, invest new revenue to build infrastructure and tamp down the federal deficit.

What is that man doing on that sawhorse, riding backward in the saddle with the reins between his teeth? Who are those flamethrowers on stilts and those jugglers spitting Ping-Pong balls? And why is that middle-aged woman--dressed in nothing but a strapless leotard and fishnet hose--here for a job interview? At this grungy Hollywood sound stage, things are exactly what they appear to be. This is a temporary job placement office.

Cue Simpsons-Comic-Book-Store-Guy voice: Best. Band. Ever! If you're a good drummer, it's a physically demanding job. To be the greatest, you must follow a training regimen that goes beyond the lighted stage. A recent reader's poll in Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed my fellow Canadian Neil Peart of Rush to be the greatest living drummer, and I, many drum magazines and TV's "Family Guy" agree. Accordingly, I endeavored to snag an interview with a man who rarely gives interviews.

A court on Saturday upheld corruption charges against N.T. Rama Rao, a movie star turned politician and one of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's bitterest political enemies. The high court in the southern city of Hyderabad said Rama Rao abused his position of chief minister of Andhra Pradesh state to benefit his relatives. The judgment did not say that Rama Rao used his office for personal profit, but it cited five cases where he helped relatives.

Rama Iyengar has been named senior vice president-investments for Thomas Green/San Diego Securities in Los Angeles. Iyengar was formerly first vice president at Drexel Burnham Lambert.