By DANNY GALLAGHER

Dear Halle Berry,

It's hard to imagine what you're going through right now. Divorce is never a happy part of life unless you were married Kathie Lee Gifford. That woman needs to be tied down to something heavy NOW.

The news was hard to ignore when the press first sunk their claws into it. Every major fish wrap in the world seemed to be ripping the story off the news wires and pasting on their front page like it was a picture of Bill Clinton and Princess Di sharing a bucket of chicken wings at a Hooters in Little Rock.

But don't despair. As the Bumblebee Tuna company might say when they've been ordered by the US Department of Agriculture to throw out their entire stock of tainted tuna, "there's still plenty of fish in the sea." A beautiful star in the nighttime sky like yourself will have no trouble finding another man to fill the void in your life that your ex-husband left behind - maybe even, perhaps...me.

You're probably laughing right now. In fact, you're probably laughing so hard that the very thought of you and I as a couple is permanently implanted in your brain as your new special happy place. The laughter is probably makes your jaws hurt, your sweet, slender, exquisite jaws. First, let me note your laughter proves I have a great sense of humor, which you ladies seem to care so much about these days. And secondly, just hear me out.

A relationship like ours has the potential to be much more than your average drunken hookup on TV's "Blind Date." I'm looking for a soul-mate, and I'm sure you expect nothing less and if the guy just happens to be a professional baseball player who makes more money than Rwanda's national deficit, then so be it.

Plus, we have a million things in common. Our love of movies are well known to the world. You're the highest paid, African American actress working in Hollywood today and starred in such classics as "X-Men," "Monster's Ball" and "Bulworth." I'm an out of work movie critic who only likes about 99 percent of all the movies ever made, of which "Bulworth" falls in that 1 percent I might add.

We've both known from first hand experience the damage sour relationships can cause. Despite your "Helen of Troy" like beauty, you've been divorced twice to guys whose combined salaries could help Universal recoup their losses from "Waterworld." My last girlfriend dumped me like a shipment of radioactive sewage in the ocean because she was tired of eating at Arby's on all of our dates.

But despite my obvious financial and physical flaws, I consider myself quite a catch. Since I spent my livelihood tearing films apart and criticizing every living human being in the entertainment industry from the heads of Warner Brothers studios down to the guy who swept up the set of "The Matrix Revolutions," there's a lot of left over love to give.

My strong Catholic upbringing has prepared me well for becoming someone else's soul-mate. I consider myself to be a very forgiving person who's willing to look past the fact you've starred in "Race the Sun," "Gothika" and "Swordfish" in order to share a life with you.

As a beautiful movie superstar, you also provide pathetic, lonely guys around the world with a sense of hope that there's someone in this world who's waiting to be with them. Just think of how much hope you could provide them with by hooking up with a pasty, fat, white guy like me.

These are just a sampling of the numerous reasons we belong together. I could go further but my readers will only read so far before their attention span tempts them to close my column and visit Smokinghothotelmaidsinheat.com. But let me just conclude by saying this is not a marriage proposal from some psychotic fan nor is it a stalker's note ordering you to fall in love with me or I'll be forced to put my fear into your soul.

All I ask is that you consider it, think about the possibilities and quit laughing already.

Sincerely, Danny Gallagher

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©2004 by Danny Gallagher

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