Soccer Player Killed in Iraq Receives Two Shits

May 3, 2004

Avacado, TX

n a brief ceremony Saturday, American soccer player Nathan Horne, killed in action during March in Iraq, was posthumously decorated with the Two Shits medal by a ranking Pentagon officer, Gen. Wilbur Finletter.

The Pentagon had received some criticism from soccer fans in light of recent accolades given former NFL player Pat Tillman, also killed in action, and celebrated as a god among men and all around nifty human being for giving up football to fight in a war otherwise disapproved by the public at large. Critics charged the U.S. military and national media with anti-soccer bias for its worship of Tillman while Horne went unrecognized for his valiant service and awesome death.

Horne's father, Reggie, summed up the position: "Nathan left a potentially-lucrative, at least it would have been overseas, career in soccer to serve his country. The fact he was killed in action should mean something, at least since he was a well-known athlete and not just one of the other faceless war dead."

A starting kicker or something for the Dallas Burn, which is apparently a real national league soccer team, Horne met his death when his convoy was attacked outside Baghdad March 26. Witnesses believe Horne tried to save the lives of his fellow soldiers, jumping into the air and attempting to deflect an incoming RPG with his head. Horne and the other soldiers received some posthumous awards, but Horne's father says none of them count since they weren't covered by the media and no one was invited to the ceremony.

Gen. Finletter tried to amend the error with a small ceremony in a mostly empty high school gym in Horne's hometown of Avacado, Texas. A medal known as the Two Shits, and reserved for those killed in action who appear much more important upon reflection, was reportedly not made up just for the ceremony. Finletter gave the award to Horne's widow, Iris, and two minutes of silence (one for each Shit) followed, except for the sound of freshmen playing dodge ball on the other side of the gym.

"If it didn't seem like we cared when you died, sorry and all," said Finletter, clearing his throat with a slight cough. "Let our presence here today, as well as the frumpy little medal we handed out, signify that we really do give two shits. Amen."

The reexamination of Horne's death hit everyone hard. A former assistant coach for the Burn, Kyle Hooper, was distraught upon remembering the news.

"I always knew Nathan was a pretty good guy, fun to get shit-faced with," said Hooper, "but I didn't think he was a hero until recently. When all this stuff happened with Pat Tillman, I realized hey, Nathan didn't have to go over there and defend our freedom. Or defend the Iraqi's freedom, or whatever. I know freedom was involved. He could have stayed here. Hell, he was getting axed from the Burn next season anyway, but it doesn't mean he couldn't have stayed here. He didn't have to go to Iraq, like all those guys who are in the army now. He could have went on living for plenty more years and not gotten himself killed in an unjust war. But that's the kind of guy he wasâ€”never really considering his decisions."

Donations in Horne's memory, in lieu of flowers, are requested to be sent directly to his widow and family, who will otherwise have no way to support themselves. For those who would like to do more to honor his memory, the family requests you attend a little rally with a store-bought sign exclaiming how much you support the troops.

the commune news is a sucker for soccer, what can we say? Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown was once a world-famous athlete, and he's also dead, so he and Nathan Horne can identify on a lot of levels.

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March 31, 2003

Dad on the Run

So it's no surprise, everybody's been talking about the same thing for two weeks now: My dad broke out of jail. It's high time I gave everybody the facts to stop these vicious rumors.

Okay, for one, yes, he broke out, but my mom had already posted the bail just before the breakout occurred, so technically he shouldn't even be wanted at this point. You can't tell me five minutes makes a difference between him being legally bonded and on the run from the law. The police tell me that, but we both know the real deal.

And two, that guy dropped his gun so that charge of stealing an officer's weapon is complete bullshit. If I dropped a pencil and you picked it up, you didn't steal it, did you? Right, it's finders-keepers law, and everybody knows it. That cop is just embarrassed because he couldn't hang onto his gun when dad pushed him.

Third, and this is the big one for me, my mom dropped the charges against him. Technically, shouldn't that start some kind of Back to the Future time unraveling deal where dad never went to jail because the charges never existed? So all these surplus charges shouldn't be there either. I saw It's a Wonderful Life enough times to know that chain reaction shit.

It's all that dildo Freddie Mercury's fault. Not the singer from Queen Freddie Mercury, I think he's dead, but that jackass wanna-be pimp friend of dad's Freddie Mercury. That guy just seems to come out of the woodwork whenever my dad's...

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December 22, 2003

Sorry for Skipping the Poor Kids

º Last Column: Get Me on the Next Plane to Nigeria!
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Nothing's more depressing than gearing up for the Christmas season, getting all jolly and stuff, and getting one of these letters from the little kids who are oh-so innocent: "Santa, can you please bring gifts to all the poor kids this year?"

Ah, Christ. Like I needed that bring-down.

Look, once and for all, I cannot help the poor kids. It's not because I'm some big fat asshole, lord knows. My hands are tied on the matter. Sorry. Life's hard, learn to cope.

Once Thanksgiving is over I got my helpers showing up in droves telling me what kids want, and every one says, "By the way, getting a lot of flak on the whole 'poor kids' thing. Can you do something about that this year?" I kick them out of the office and don't tell them anything else, because it's none of their business. I'm the head elf. They don't need to know the murky depths of the business.

But just for the record, without naming names, let's just say it's very difficult to run a high-overhead operation like this and cutting costs wherever possible is a must. I got the elves and reindeer out selling band candy and magazine subscriptions all year around just to afford the toys in the first place, then I have to work out tax bracket nonsense with each individual government. That's a lot of work.

Not that these guys aren't jolly in their own way, I'm not pointing the finger at them. They've got their own problems. You don't have a major influx of toys every year on the same night and not have big tax issues to deal with, I understand the mechanics of it. So for centuries I've been working out deals on the side to keep operating at whatever cost, and it just turns out the poor kids get screwed in the deal. Sorry, shit ain't fair.

It's not just getting lists and making the toys, folks. There's red tape, always red tape. I've worked out a deal in most countries where a certain percentage of every family's individual income qualifies for toy delivery. As you can imagine, it's a pretty dismal story for the poor kids. It's not my fault you live in a trailer and dad cleans up roadkill for a living. I never said forget the contraceptives, baby, I know when to pull out. The fact is people don't put the thought into having kids they should, and who gets screwed? You kids, that's the fact. Tell your dad he should have been studying for the SATs instead of rocking out to Cinderella.

So the rich kids get richer and the poor kids get squat. Those capitalist countries love it. And the communist countries, now that it's like three or four, I can't even work out a deal with those knobs. They always demand I do something about sanctions and I keep telling them, I don't touch sanctions, not my business. I'm all about the toys. They say when I can do something about improving trade relations they'll let me deliver toys, but hard luck until then. And don't even get me started on Israelâ€”they've been stonewalling me for years.

It's shit. I know it's shit. But sometimes you work with the cards you're dealt. My philosophy is, if I can get 40% of the kids out there presents, it's better than 0%. I'm working on the rest, believe me, I've got lobbyists and everything. Next time you see a diminutive fellow in Washington, you know he's working overtime to bring toys to the poor kids of the world. One of these days, children. One of these days.

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Quote of the Day

“My love is like a red, red wiiiineâ€¦ go to my heaaaadâ€¦ make me forgeeetâ€¦ Wait. Sorry. My love is like a red, red roseâ€¦ just like eeeeevery night has its daaaaaw- awawaaaanâ€¦ Just like eeeevery cooowboyâ€¦ Fuck.”

-A.D.Dobbs

Fortune 500 Cookie

Clowns don't hate you, they just feel sorry for you. Your "Don't Worry, Be Slappy" series of self-help books finally broke the five-copy sales barrier this week, and just got you sued by the estate of Slappy White. This week's lucky strikes: Clover-Workers' Union, ump didn't see ball careen off batter's jock and through strike zone, killed them all while they were dreaming about killing you, threw your ex-wife's severed head down lane on accident.

Try again later.

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5.	Love and Other Outright Lies

North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie

BY Roland McShyster

7/7/2003

All right, America, who's hungry for a movie? And I don't mean just a "popcorn" movie, as the saying goes, I'm talking a juicy, full-bodied meal of a movie. One that if you watched it every day, in ten years you'd shit out a strange, grayish thing that used to be your liver. A real movie. You are? Me too. Let me know if you find one.

All I've got here to offer this week is Hollywood's latest batch of "films," waiting to crap up your brain stem like arterial plaque. Will they do the job, numbing your barely-firing synapses to the pain of a life who's only success thus far as been contributing to already alarming obesity statistics and supersizing your prostate? I suppose, but don't blame Roland if your brain dies like a shark that stopped moving.

In Theaters

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Sean Connery and a bunch of guys you wouldn't pay to wash your car play a ragtag assortment of comic book geeks and gaming nerds who are called upon to use their skills of denial, make-believe and lack of social acumen to save the world from a villain you won't understand if you've ever had sex or paid your own rent. While it is kind of fun to watch a bunch of nitwits pretend they're mostly fictional historical figures (and I'm talking about the characters here, though I suppose the same could be said about the actors themselves), seeing this movie is a high-risk proposition since unless you can convince people at the theater that you were actually coming out of Charlie's Angels 2 or some other breast-fest, the association alone may brand you permanently undateable.

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde

Making a sequel to Bob Dylan's greatest album is a fool's gamble, but attempting to make that hypothetical sequel as a film is where that crackpot idea rubs up against genius. Luke Wilson and Reese Witherspoon finally pretty-face their way into the roles they were born to play, transforming themselves into Bob Dylan and Joan Baez for this gripping political musical. Wilson pulls off an uncanny impersonation of Dylan's dying Muppet singing voice and Witherspoon is smart to re-imagine Baez as a perky blonde who's more fun than anyone remembers the actual Baez being. Is it art? Hell no, but who sent you over here looking for art? Joke's on you, Poindexter.

Pirates of the Caribbean The Ride The Movie:

The Curse of the Black Pearl Harbor

Man, talk about a movie title that's tough to shoehorn into a request for a date. You're better off just taking her to the dog track. As for the movie itself, it's pretty much the same as the ride. You get a little wet and laugh at people getting raped and pillaged, and there's a funny dog. The problem is that the ride is only 20 minutes long, so the last hour and 40 minutes of the film are a bizarre revisionist vision of history where the Japanese bomb Detroit but are defeated by Cuba Gooding Jr. and the Shirelles, then are doomed to an eternity of karaoke-singing Motown hits badly as punishment. Sometimes it feels like you're watching a whole other movie, though they did throw in a few swashbuckling, cell-phone waving Japanese pirates here and there for continuity's sake. Every once in a while I think you just have to blame a movie on bad seafood.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Sequel

Brad Pitt reprises his role from the dwarf-themed slasher hit Seven for the inevitable sequel, this time struggling with his good-lookingness while trying to track down grandma-eating stand up comedian Sinbad. In this go-around, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Pitt's constantly PMSing partner who has to be told not to be so macho all the time, and Michelle Pfeiffer reprises the Paltrow role as a head in a box. Some scoffed I'm sure, but I thought the choice of Sinbad as the villain was an inspired one. Anyone who's sat through Housesitter knows Sinbad's way scarier than Kevin Spacey, or even Spacey carrying around Anthony Hopkins in an infant huggie.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Meatheads

Only a barely-articulate robot played by barely-articulate Austrian muscledick Arnold Schwartzeneggar can save John Conner from a sub-literate gang of sent-from-the-future bodybuilders intent on kicking sand in Conner's face and stealing his girl. While the high-school bully theme and surf-guitar soundtrack might seem like an incongruous departure from the previous two films, it actually breathes new life into a series that was getting tired. After all, you can only fart around with the concept so long before the audience starts wondering why the machines didn't just send one of those unstoppable killer Terminators way back in time to kill Sarah Connor's great great grandma while she was making iced tea or something, before they had helicopters and one-handed cocking shotguns and exciting shit to get in the way. I'm sure if they went back far enough they could have found some slow-running ancestor who would've been easy enough to Ginsu, preventing the need for all these sequels.

And that's the way we were, America. Was it good? No, but it was on time, and that's all that matters in Europe. Join us next week when we see if the titles of the new releases spell anything funny in anagram form.