Jewel Confesses Life-Long
Battle with Pretension
Singer, Dickensian poet waif reveals what all have long suspected 
BY LIL DUNCAN Anchorage, AK

RICK HOOGER/AP Jewel, displaying trademark symptoms of pretension

Young musician and published author Jewel surprised few Friday when she revealed she’s battled with pretension all her life.

“It’s not something you want to admit, even to yourself,” Jewel said in her calm, waterfall-like voice at a press conference Friday. “Your soul is kind, gentle, and without acclaim, and then tiny threads of a black spider wrap you up in pretension. It is a disease of the fiercest… uh… pony.” Friends and confidants knew for years, yet kept her secret because they thought Jewel could handle it.

“The next thing I knew,” said Bill Barber, a session player and friend, “she was on VH-1 against a white background reading snippets of poetry like she’s a supermodel Maya Angelou. That’s when I knew she had no control of the problem.”

Even then, all were reluctant to speak up for fear of damaging her career or their own. An attempt at an intervention in March of 2000 disintegrated into a hootenanny and Native American bonfire ritual, and several members walked out nearly as pretentious as the one they came to help.

“Pretension is sometimes hereditary, but more often results from years of unearned attention festering, cultivating itself into the bacteria egous extremis,” stated Dr. Simone Callow, Professor of Pretentious Studies at Columbia University. “Often through no fault of their own a victim can start out a perfectly healthy human being, and then before you know it they’re taking themselves so seriously they’re publishing their own autobiography, or accepting awards for ridiculously minimal accomplishments.”

Pretension, though often confined to those with higher-income households without geographic boundary, is unfairly distributed throughout Hollywood and the New York art scene.

“There’s no telling how many have it in Hollywood,” Dr. Callow said. “When you pay people millions of dollars for doing virtually nothing, it makes for a breeding ground for pretension.”

Jewel herself, recently releasing the new album This Way, has halted tour plans to check into the Martha Stewart Clinic For Pretension in Connecticut in hopes of treating her condition.

“A dark spot has begun to wander across my heart,” she said with stilted, distant voice. “Until I corner this blemish, collect it in my cupped hands and whistle it away to the wind, I cannot share my gift with the world.”

the commune news regrets coming to this party dressed in the plaid bellbottoms. Lil Duncan is a senior correspondent for the commune and weighs in at a rough ‘n’ tumble 130 lbs.