Joker

As Philadelphians looked towards the future with the arrival of the new century, the Jokers Fancy Brigade slipped back into time for the theme that earned them a first-place finish in the 2000 Mummers Parade. They found it in a book written in 1895 by the British writer considered to be the father of modern science fiction, H.G. Wells. Their theme was borrowed from one of Wells' most chilling fables, "The Island of Dr. Moreau. " "It was one of six themes submitted. Our costume committee knew we were onto something because the Doctor Moreau fable was so creative and so original," said Jokers Captain Fred Keller.

The people who made "Police Academy" ought to declare a moratorium on sequels. They should turn their attentions to America's foremost laughing academy - the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Its 1985-86 Emmy Award nominations list, announced last week, is tour de farce. Wanna hear a good one? The members of the TV academy think ABC's "Moonlighting" is serious. They nominated it for best dramatic series, along with "Hill Street Blues," "St. Elsewhere," "Cagney & Lacey" and "Murder, She Wrote.

Ben Chavis' fall from grace as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People reinforced the fateful fact that this nation remains screwed up when it comes to race relations. Chavis mishandled just about everything - the organization's finances, its public relations, possibly even its employees - but refused to shoulder the blame. Instead, he played the race card, citing "forces outside the African- American community" - presumably whites and especially Jews.

The Phillies nominated Don Carman as their titular staff ace this spring and, by the process-of-elimination standards that apply to this patchwork rotation, so it is written. He hasn't had to go on the disabled list, as Floyd Youmans and Steve Ontiveros and Marvin Freeman already have. He hasn't had to have several starts postponed due to numbness at the tips of his index and middle fingers, like Ken Howell. He hasn't needed a remedial course in the minor leagues, Throwing Strikes 101, in the manner of Bruce Ruffin.

The machine clicked away, producing numbered slips for customers who then found seats on the brightly painted benches at B & S Shoes in Drexel Hill. As the parents read the overhead charts listing the official shoes of area private schools, their children scrambled up a set of carpeted steps to make faces in a trick mirror. Meanwhile, the store's seven salespeople brought out shoes in sizes from B to triple E to show some of the 200 customers who visit B & S Shoes each day during the back-to-school rush.

k.d. lang's a woman of bountiful talents, and you couldn't leave her show at the Tower Theater Thursday unimpressed. Dressed in a green riding jacket, white and black striped shirt and black pants, she could have sated her swooning fans just by beaming back their adulation. But lang didn't settle for that. Instead, the androgynous Canadian diva sang her showstopping version of Roy Orbison's "Crying" with unbeatable emotionalism. She joked about her recent revelation of her sexual orientation ("There's one thing you don't know about me. I'm a le . . . le . . . a Lawrence Welk fan!"

CLEARWATER, Fla. - When a reporter asked the group of five pitchers what their favorite suggested nickname for the Phillies' rotation was, Cliff Lee respectfully pointed out a problem. "We haven't heard one with five included yet," Lee said. Ah, yes, there are five pitchers. The fifth, Joe Blanton, made his first public comments after a winter of trade rumors. He could still be traded if the Phillies find the right deal, but for now Blanton is the fifth starter in a rotation of four aces.

The night before, Jumaine Jones, the last of 16 players invited by the NBA to sit in the "green room," could have been excused for not laughing. Yesterday, Todd MacCulloch made sure everybody kept laughing. Those are your 76ers draft choices and they appeared together at the First Union Center for a late-afternoon news conference. There was some news. Mostly, there were easy questions because the answers won't be known for some time. Jones, the 6-7 sophomore from Georgia, supposedly was rated 13th on the Sixers' draft board.

You are 27 years old, two years out of graduate school and employed in your first "real" job. You sell bonds for one of the most revered power brokers on Wall Street, Salomon Bros. Inc. You don't fully understand what it is you are selling, or why you were hired, for that matter, but it doesn't matter. You made $90,000 last year and pulled in $225,000 this year. In two years, you can double that by making more dubious sales to unsuspecting customers. For the greed-is-good generation, such a life would be charmed, the envy of every business-school comer.

Many companies forbid April Fool's Day festivities. Based on real-life past experiences, it's not hard to see why. Some examples: Office doors covered with drywall to make it look like the offices never existed. Stripping an office of all its contents and furniture the night before April 1. A total systems shutdown simulation for a network administrator. Displaying banners that say the company has been bought by a competitor. These examples come from a survey of facility managers across the country by the International Facility Management Association.