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 April 25, 2005 |
Alexandria, Virginia Rusty Klein Resident commune artist prodigy Rusty Klein, age 9, renders the courtroom scene for us in largely accurate detail, except the suspect in custody, of course, didn't have a machine. We're not sure who the kid with the "butthole" T-shirt is, probably a friend of Rusty's who may or may not have been present at the hearing.  
Moussaoui's al Qaeda comrades were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the White House. The attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people and spurred the War on Terror, as well as fueled the War in Iraq. In Friday's preliminary hearing, however, Moussaoui tried to distance himself from the national tragedies, and claimed he was part of another attempt to fly a plane into the White House that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
"I came to America to be part ...
ovable loser and one-time fanatical terrorist hopeful Zacarias Moussaoui vowed to fight the death penalty and instant martyrdom for Islam in a Virginia courtroom Friday, as he entered a guilty plea on multiple terror charges.
Moussaoui's al Qaeda comrades were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the attempted attack on the White House. The attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 3,000 people and spurred the War on Terror, as well as fueled the War in Iraq. In Friday's preliminary hearing, however, Moussaoui tried to distance himself from the national tragedies, and claimed he was part of another attempt to fly a plane into the White House that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
"I came to America to be part of attack on White House and use plane as weapon of mass destruction," said Moussaoui in funny broken English. "As you can tell, attack not go so well for me. Moussaoui get picked up at Minnesota flight school paying cash for lessons. Stupid Moussaoui!"
People in attendance laughed themselves silly, with comparisons to Tarzan and the Incredible Hulk going around the room. The terror suspect burst into rage, shaking his hands violently and yelling, "Quit it! Quit laughing at Moussaoui!" until he was tasered by bailiffs.
While medics attempted to revive the suspect, Moussaoui's defense team spoke to the press. They vowed, despite having pledged his life to al Qaeda's plan to martyr themselves destroying America, Moussaoui would fight the death penalty in the case after the prosecution announced they would seek capital punishment.
Moussaoui, a French fanatical Arab, was the first suspect arrested in the probe investigating the 9/11 attacks, arrested in 2001 a month before the attacks when he raised suspicion by paying $7,000 in cash for flight simulator training in Minnesota. Those who knew him in his private life described Moussaoui as a generally nice fellow, but said he did stand out from the other foreign visitors they knew.
"Well, I remember he referred to himself in the third person a lot," said neighbor Rachel Wincett. "He talked a lot about wanting to blow up George W. Bush. But it's Minnesota, you know, you can't swing a dead cat without finding someone who wants to kill the president."
Flight instructor Harold Farmer noticed peculiarities with Moussaoui as well.
"Mostly he asked a lot about parachutes," said Farmer. "He'd ask how the auto-pilot worked… if you could steer the plane for something like, say, the White House, put it on auto-pilot, and then parachute out to safety before the massive explosions ensued. I told him sure, we all dream about it, but auto-pilot technology hasn't come far enough to turn planes into self-guided missiles yet. Maybe one day."
Nathan Ledbetter, a sometime-friend of Moussaoui, recalled: "He did carry a boxcutter with him everywhere we went, and when people stepped too close to him he would whip it out in a pinch, jab it out at everyone, threaten to fly the whole plane into a government building. I'd tell him, 'Yo, Zack, we're not in a plane, man, we're at Brewski's, and it's dollar beer night.' Come to think of it, I guess you can call that 'odd' behavior. Not the oddest with my friends, but odd enough."
In a statement pledging to fight the death penalty, Moussaoui reminded the judge that technically, since he's still alive, it's proof he wasn't involved in the suicide attacks during 9/11. Moussaoui also said that thought he hopes to embrace eternal martyrdom and be blessed in the afterlife with a planeful of virgins and the kindness of Allah, he will be happy to wait a long time, like until he is 97 years old, before he martyrs himself. the commune says keep all the virgins for yourself in heaven if you want, and fork over the same number of loose women—what are you going to do with 117 virgins, play a long-ass game of Charades? Bludney Pludd would also like his name to live on for all eternity, but would be even happier if we remembered it just one day of his life here in the present.
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Appeals Court Rules Hilton Legitimately Too Pretty to Survive Prison Climatologists Cross Legs Uncomfortably at Mention of Bangkok Conference Merck: “Crazy-Ass Brazil Giving AIDS Drugs to People With No Money” Poison Probe Reveals 90% of Packaged Foods Actually Dog Food |
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 December 9, 2002
Pulling a Franklin in the GarageIf you were paying any attention last column, and not just skimming for mentions of supermodel sex, you'll remember I started a story about building a new Bricksmobile and running down to Sears to get a floodlight for the garage, and how those cheap fuckers tried to con me into paying fifteen large for some kind of gold-plated adapter. Long story short, I remembered I already had an adapter at home, so I called their bluff and let them contemplate my bare ass on the way out the door.
I went home, dug up the adapter and with a little elbow grease I managed to get it to plug into the floodlight. Turned the whole shebang on and no light, but a weird humming noise and the place started to smell like a hair salon. I figured the adapter might have gone bad some time while I was using it to prop up the washing machine, so I unhooked it from the light and considered ways to test to see if the adapter was still good.
When I was a kid, Mom Bricks showed me a trick about how to tell if a battery was still good or not. This was back before they started putting those worthless little pretend power gauge stickers on batteries as part of a partnership with America's Funniest Home Videos, and even before they built that flimsy battery tester into the package.
Nope, back then when you found a AA rolling around back behind the refrigerator, you had to call up NASA and read tea leaves or some shit to find out if it was still any good. Sure, you...
º Last Column: Let There Be Light
º more columns
If you were paying any attention last column, and not just skimming for mentions of supermodel sex, you'll remember I started a story about building a new Bricksmobile and running down to Sears to get a floodlight for the garage, and how those cheap fuckers tried to con me into paying fifteen large for some kind of gold-plated adapter. Long story short, I remembered I already had an adapter at home, so I called their bluff and let them contemplate my bare ass on the way out the door.
I went home, dug up the adapter and with a little elbow grease I managed to get it to plug into the floodlight. Turned the whole shebang on and no light, but a weird humming noise and the place started to smell like a hair salon. I figured the adapter might have gone bad some time while I was using it to prop up the washing machine, so I unhooked it from the light and considered ways to test to see if the adapter was still good.
When I was a kid, Mom Bricks showed me a trick about how to tell if a battery was still good or not. This was back before they started putting those worthless little pretend power gauge stickers on batteries as part of a partnership with America's Funniest Home Videos, and even before they built that flimsy battery tester into the package.
Nope, back then when you found a AA rolling around back behind the refrigerator, you had to call up NASA and read tea leaves or some shit to find out if it was still any good. Sure, you could wipe off the corroded cat hair, pop it in your Walkman and just hope, but then when the tape started freaking out and playing at one quarter speed half-way through No Sleep Till Brooklyn you had no idea whether it was that battery or one of the seven others that was puttin' on the shits.
So, unless you wanted to get a summer job or something so you could replace all the batteries, you had to find some way to figure out which of the coppertops was riding bitch. Shaking them seemed like a good idea, but they didn't make any obvious half-empty rattling noises, plus since they were so small it was hard to be sure unless you shook your head the same way while you held the battery to your ear, and that just got confusing.
Likewise, tapping on them was no good, and tests to see if the empty ones rolled slower proved inconclusive. None of them floated, and if you cut one in half with bolt cutters it made a huge mess and you couldn't use it then anyway, even if it turned out to have plenty of juice left. That's when Mom Bricks stepped in and showed me that if you touch the end of the battery to your tongue, you get a little shock if it's still good. I later learned this works for other body parts too, though that's a story for another column.
Fast-forward to Saturday night, and what works for a battery should work for an adapter, right? Well, I touched the end of the adapter cord to my tongue and there's no nice way to say how fast the Omar Bricks weekend went to pot after that. I don't really want to talk about it.
Let's just suffice it to say that's the first time I've ever shit out anything that was on fire.
Bricks Out. º Last Column: Let There Be Lightº more columns
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|  June 10, 2002
What's With All This Shit on Our Money?Anyone who's ever not spent a dollar long enough to look at it has noticed that there's more to American money than meets the eye. Look closely and you'll see that it's not just a green rectangle of paper; it's a green rectangle of paper with little pictures and words and crap drawn all over it. Don't panic, nobody's been screwing with your benjamins. And believe it or not, it's not counterfeit! They're supposed to look like that, and that's the way they're printed inside the ATM machines all across the country.
No doubt you've come to understand the big numbers on the bills over the years, and have a vague understanding about the old fart who's picture is printed on the front. We all know what the king looks like and you don't need to be able to tell Nixon from Nebuchadnezzar to be able to spend a ten spot. Flip it over and there's some big-ass official looking building on the back, Cher's house or whatever depending on which bill you're looking at. I hear Bill Gates' house is on the back of the $1,000 bill, and at the press of a button it transforms into a giant mechanical Wonder Woman. The house, not the bill. Or the Bill.
But American currency gets stranger the closer you look at it, kind of like Joe Pesci's face-lift. Sure, there's the king, a house and some numbers, but what about this bird doing the splits or the spooky bear with a key for a mouth? And who was the sick bastard who thought slapping on a pyramid with a giant floating eyeball on...
º Last Column: Bush Knew All Too Well
º more columns
Anyone who's ever not spent a dollar long enough to look at it has noticed that there's more to American money than meets the eye. Look closely and you'll see that it's not just a green rectangle of paper; it's a green rectangle of paper with little pictures and words and crap drawn all over it. Don't panic, nobody's been screwing with your benjamins. And believe it or not, it's not counterfeit! They're supposed to look like that, and that's the way they're printed inside the ATM machines all across the country.
No doubt you've come to understand the big numbers on the bills over the years, and have a vague understanding about the old fart who's picture is printed on the front. We all know what the king looks like and you don't need to be able to tell Nixon from Nebuchadnezzar to be able to spend a ten spot. Flip it over and there's some big-ass official looking building on the back, Cher's house or whatever depending on which bill you're looking at. I hear Bill Gates' house is on the back of the $1,000 bill, and at the press of a button it transforms into a giant mechanical Wonder Woman. The house, not the bill. Or the Bill.
But American currency gets stranger the closer you look at it, kind of like Joe Pesci's face-lift. Sure, there's the king, a house and some numbers, but what about this bird doing the splits or the spooky bear with a key for a mouth? And who was the sick bastard who thought slapping on a pyramid with a giant floating eyeball on top was a good idea? That's about enough to make you go communist, or at least stop looking at money up close.
Of course, once your hysteria dies down and you come down out of the china hutch, you realize that there are logical explanations for all of this, and there are good reasons to have all of this shwag clogging up our bills.
The spread-eagled eagle is actually the Great Seal of the United States, but I'm with you if you think that dude needed a few more years in art school. I'm no mer-man or anything but that thing looks about as much like a seal as Sonny Bono. Many see this as evidence of the powerful acid available to our founding fathers, evidenced as well by the lyrics to our national anthem.
The Great Seal appears on all U.S. currency, so if you can't find it there's a good chance you're looking at Coney Island Bucks. The seal holds an olive branch in its left paw, a concession by the Continental Congress to the olive-growers' lobby. In its right paw it is clutching thirteen spears of asparagus, symbolic of the thirteen original colonies and yet another concession, this time to the asparagus-growers' lobby. From the seal's mouth trails a wide strand of dental floss, which reads "E Pluribus Unum," which is Latin for "Eat at Pizzeria Uno." Keep in mind that the Continental Congress was about as reputable as the American Gladiators, and most members were just looking to get laid or to see who could land the biggest bribe. Kind of like the NYPD.
Since everybody thought the seal was an eagle anyway, the Continental Congress chose the eagle as our national symbol in the 1782. Ben Franklin suggested that the turkey be made the national symbol, since eagles taste like microwaved ass. Regardless, the eagle was chosen and the rest of the Continental Congress suggested that Franklin waddle his fat ass into a weight-loss spa before they had to haze him with bars of soap rolled up in hand towels.
The crazy bear with the executioner's mask on is the symbol of the U.S. Treasury, and a viable warning not to screw with those badasses. The key in its mouth is like a dare, saying "You can screw around trying to print up fake money, and you can also have your intestines slurped out your ass like goddamned spaghetti, understand?" Call me gullible, but I took my scanner back to Best Buy after I saw that shit. Damn, Sam.
The pyramid on the back is a harder nut to crack altogether. Nobody really knows what it means or how it got there. The Continental Congress and the Treasury each blamed the other for slipping the pyramid in there, and nobody's ever taken credit for it, not even the Freemasons. The consensus is that the floating pyramid-eye rules us all from a bunker deep within Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Perhaps this amuses you. If so, chew on this: at the base of the pyramid, 1776 appears in roman numerals. Precisely the number of Americans currently in prison for asking too many questions about the floating pyramid-eye. Creepy, eh? Research editor or no research editor, I know just about all I want to know about Mr. Giant Floating Pyramid-Eye. Nose around more if you want, but don't send me any letters scribbled on toilet paper from prison later asking what a cornhole is, 'kay? º Last Column: Bush Knew All Too Wellº more columns
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Quote of the Day“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, even more shame on you! Big fooler. Fool me three times… man, that brings back memories. Reminds me of when you made me drink that urine one time.”
-Vick-O MartiniFortune 500 CookieThat heart attack medicine may be making your penis smaller, so just for safety's sake, stop taking it altogether. Learn to play the guitar this week; it's just another good reason to carry out that plan to kidnap Dweezil Zappa. Remember, passing gas in an elevator is not only rude, it also slows down your arrival time by up to 2 seconds.
Try again later.Least Popular Baby
Names, 2005| 1. | Katrina | | 2. | Gigli | | 3. | Scott Peterson | | 4. | The King of Pop | | 5. | Skullfuck | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Roland McShyster 6/24/2002 Well hey, America! Who'd have thought you'd be back for part two of our entertainmentalicious Summer Preview? I mean, what are the chances of that? I'm not a gambling man, but if I were I'd have to bet the odds were close to 100-7-245-9. Needless to say, I'm damned impressed. I looks like you've held up your end of the bargain, so I'm going to do my best to make this EP the policiest yet. This month we're taking a gander at the ass-half of the summer movie releases and asking the age-old question: where's the manager with those ticket refunds?
In Theaters
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Everybody knows Mike Meyers is a sharp guy, but does anyone really think he can make a spoof of Jerry...
Well hey, America! Who'd have thought you'd be back for part two of our entertainmentalicious Summer Preview? I mean, what are the chances of that? I'm not a gambling man, but if I were I'd have to bet the odds were close to 100-7-245-9. Needless to say, I'm damned impressed. I looks like you've held up your end of the bargain, so I'm going to do my best to make this EP the policiest yet. This month we're taking a gander at the ass-half of the summer movie releases and asking the age-old question: where's the manager with those ticket refunds?
In Theaters
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Everybody knows Mike Meyers is a sharp guy, but does anyone really think he can make a spoof of Jerry Seinfeld's American Express commercials work for 90 minutes? Sure, there's a lot of Superman material to be mined there, but once you get past the "Invisible Man boinking Wonder Woman" joke I think it's going to get old fast.
The Crocodile Hunter: The Main Course
Now here's a concept we can all get behind: that inbred Aussie redneck finally gets his ass eaten by alligators. Or crocodiles, whatever. I don't think anyone's going to argue about snout shape when they're being thrashed around in the water with their nuts in a croc's vice-like grip. This is a film idea that was about as overdue as Britney Does the Bad News Bears. Not to mention it's got a great soundtrack that includes Men at Work's cover of Crocodile Rock and that hilarious parody song Who Let the Ducks Out? that you've been hearing about on the net.
K-19: The Widowmaker
I hate to be the bearer of shitty news, but it looks like James Belushi and that fuckin' dog are back again. This time the twist on the franchise is that the dog's got some kind of hyper space-rabies and has acquired a taste for blood, so Belushi's got to track him down (surely stepping in shit along the way) and cut the dog's heart out with a pen knife before burning it in a crematorium, blah blah blah. This trend-aping is supposed to scare us, but I'm about as scared as I was when I first saw the cover for M.C. Hammer's The Funky Headhunter album. Which is to say, pretty scared, but not for the right reasons.
Like Mike
Kidflick that probably sounded like a better deal before Tyson started head-butting people's fists and getting his ass handed to him on a regular basis. Regardless, bedwetting rap sensation Little Misogynist displays some charisma in his acting debut as a pint-size boxer who learns he can suddenly hang with the big boys when he discovers that all of his punches fall at crotch-level.
Men in Black Tubes
Hey, it worked as a Madonna video, so why not drag it out onto the silver screen and let the general non-MTV-watching public poke it with a stick, eh? That's what I'm imagining the producers thought to themselves as they sat around a martini breakfast at some swanky Hollywood gyp joint and tossed around ideas like midgets at an Arkansas bowling alley. Apparently this is one of the ideas that stuck, probably only because the rest of the producers were afraid to admit they'd never seen the video. Anyway, the final product turned out pretty arty, and no one can doubt that the Maternal Girl looks good in a wetsuit made out of plastic six-pack holder rings, but the plot lost me when they were whipping the little Chicano guy out in the rain.
Milo & Stitch
Lovers of all-animal films like Woofers the Cross-Country Dog and Barnyard Porno Volume 3 have been waiting thirteen long years for a sequel to the dark coming-of-age tale Milo & Otis, the undisputed king of the kitten-chucking genre of films. If any of them were betting that 2002 would be their year, then somebody owes them a handjob because Milo the cat is coming out of string-batting retirement for one more turn on the merry-go-round called Hollywood. Diehard fans will be happy to hear that wooden-acting little dog Otis isn't back for the sequel, thanks to his being eaten by a hippo on the set of a shampoo commercial back in the original film's heyday. He's been replaced by a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named Stitch, who starts out the movie cute, in an ugly-little-pig kind of way, but by the end of the movie has eaten himself into some kind of belly-dragging nightmare destined to be left behind on a family camping trip. Surely the DeNiro of animal actors, Stitch goes all the way for this thinly-veiled Elvis bio-parable, with Milo lending a purring dignity as Stitch's backwoods huckster of a personal manager.
Minority Depot
Bad as it was, NBC's liberal-pleasing sitcom at least served a purpose when it was on TV. With a cast representing every racial group on the planet, plus one ignorant, backwoods, racist, sexist and certifiably ugly white dude, the show at least managed to clam up the social critics who argue that there aren't enough Korean weightlifting champion women on network sitcoms. But there is such a thing as throwing a dog too many bones, as will be evidenced when this turkey sucks its way over to the silver screen this summer. And a note to the Hollywood bigwigs in charge of this one: if you think you can pass off Tom Cruise as ugly, you've obviously never been to Pennsylvania.
The Powerpuff Girls
A trio of New Jersey High School broads discover that a whole new world opens up to them when they spend their Sweet 16 birthday loot on breast enlargement surgery. Teaches the powerful lesson to young girls everywhere that money can't buy you love, but it can buy you a nice rack and a lifetime of popularity and marriage proposals, not to mention a sweet gig as a trophy wife. I tell you, chicks have the life.
Rain of Fire
Jesus Christ, somebody want to tell me who pissed off Prince so bad? Last time I checked he was a soft-spoken boogie machine with a flair for offensive asswear, now I turn around and he's some kind of Hollywood angel of death? I thought I was going to get some hot, half-naked dancing mulattos, not Nine Inch Nails, The Movie. I don't want to start any rumors, but I think somebody must have keyed his little red corvette something awful.
Road to Perdition
There are about three people on the planet who think you can make a Road… picture without Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and apparently Tom Hanks is one of them. And whoever thought the snore-inducing berg of Perdition, Florida was an exotic locale on par with Bali, Hong Kong and Zanzibar needs to have his dentures rinsed off. Hanks and Paul Newman do their best to keep the laughs coming as a couple of numb-nutted mafia hitmen, but this series was old back when Bob Hope still had that "new guy" smell.
Stuart Little 2
Talk about timing. Everybody's been waiting since they were five for that lying little duck to get what's coming to him, and it looks like the sky's about to fall on Stuart Little. We all love to see a little comeuppance dished out to some hothead who never learned the lesson of The Boy Who Cried Wolverine, but I'll personally be in line just to see how far the technology of duck-bashing has come since the Daffy-blasting days of my youth.
Whew, America, I think that's about that. I hope your summer is full of big-screen thrills and painless sprints to the restrooms during the dull scenes. Check back in a month and who knows what you'll find in this spot? I'm serious, I'm not even sure myself. But if I know Hollywood, they'll keep churning out the review fodder and we should get along fine. One more thing America: I don't know if Jennifer Connelly is going to get naked in The Hulk, so you can stop emailing me about it any time now. What am I supposed to be, her girlfriend slash confidant or something? Just because you roll with the commune doesn't always mean everybody takes your calls all the time, or even if you're a commune writer pretending to be from E! Online. See you next time!   |
