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Bush Adds Segway Scooters to "Axis of Evil"June 23, 2003 |
Kennebunkport, ME Assad the Unseen President Bush taking a digger that had nothing to do with his “Axising” of the Segway Human Transporter The list has taken on a broader tone in recent months, as the roll call of the president’s “Axis” enemies has been expanded to include the environment, ice cream headaches, the city of Toronto, STDs, gay bikers, ABC’s primetime l...
pon returning from his weekend vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine on Tuesday President Bush announced that the Segway Human Transporter, a motorized scooter popular among newsmagazines and eccentric billionaires, had been added to the “Axis of Evil” over the weekend. The “Axis of Evil,” a list of rogue nations designated by Bush in 2002 for future “liberation back to the stone age,” originally consisted of Iran, North Korea and Iraq. Cuba, Libya and Syria were later added to the list after an underattended Bush birthday celebration in July. The list has taken on a broader tone in recent months, as the roll call of the president’s “Axis” enemies has been expanded to include the environment, ice cream headaches, the city of Toronto, STDs, gay bikers, ABC’s primetime lineup, cold sores, childproof Advil and Blue Oyster Cult. This seemingly neurotic daily expansion of the list has led to the ironic cultural trend of “Axising” disliked pop-culture fads or unpopular coworkers in wiseass circles nationwide. “Britney Spears? She’s so ‘Axis’ right now,” gossiped clubgoer Ryan Barnes. “She’s worse than North Korea, talk about stockpiling weapons of mass deSUCKtion! Ha ha. Oh, and piercing. I’m so fucking sick of piercing.” Much speculation has surrounded the timing of Bush’s “Axising” of the Segway Human Transporter, which took place concurrent with grainy home video footage hitting the Internet that showed Bush falling off a Segway like a big retarded ape last weekend in Maine. While the Bush administration has denied any link between the two events, the public remains skeptical. “Did you see that shit?” gasped college sophomore Dennis Porter. “That was tha bomb, I almost shit when that gimp wanged his nuts on that gay-ass scooter thing! Who does he think he is, Devo?” The Segway Human Transporter was unveiled in December of 2001 after a full year of speculation and claims that Dean Kamen’s mysterious new invention would change the world forever. Once unveiled, the transporter was met with embarrassed silence from an American public that had thought it was going to be a hovercar or android man or something incredible like that. “Thanks to the Segway’s four internal gyroscopes, it’s nearly impossible to fall off of the transporter,” explained inventor Kamen. “We used to just say it was impossible, but then we discovered that if you get a blind guy drunk enough, and have him try to ride it down some stairs, sometimes they can manage. And now, well, the president thing of course.” In his speech, Bush vowed to embargo any possible shipments of Segway scooters destined for North Korea, keeping the dangerous fad toy from falling into the hands of Kim Jong Il’s bizarre regime. The president, however, did not take this opportunity to explain what use the North Koreans would have for an expensive goofy scooter that looks like George Jetson’s lawnmower.
the commune news thought those razor scooters were going to change the way we lived forever, so we’re not about to be fooled twice concerning the revolutionary power of scootering. Lil Duncan has yet to have a president fall off of her mid-ride, but the term is still young.
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New EPA head "strongly leaning" toward pro-environment stance
High gas prices slowing Molotov cocktail sales
Monty Python passes anti-Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam legislation
Laser pointers shined at plane annoy passengers watching Meet the Fockers
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At Least One
Team in SuperBowl �Really Came to Play� War on Terror Finally Focused on Real Threats Who�s the Black Pit That Killed a Night Club Prick? Elevator Shaft — Damn Right Apple iPhone to Contain Real Fruit Filling |
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 April 19, 2004
Here Comes the HumdrumThe tale of how I escaped the angry mobs of Haitian dissidents is the most chilling, exciting, and inspiring story that has ever happened to me. Consequently, I sold the rights to it so it could be made into a Hallmark movie (look for it on CBS this Fall, with James Woods as the handsome Rok Finger-type character). This means I can't tell you about it, but don't worry, I have a number of stories almost as amazing. Have I told you how I started the Atkins diet this week?
It's part of my effort to rebuild my life now that I'm back on steady shore and have forsaken my pirate ways. No doubt anyone would miss the charming shanty of the sea, but I believe I'm better off—some are meant to sail the sea and poach whales or whatever else there is to do out there, while others of us are landlubbers. And I lub land. I was meant to wear stifling three-piece suits, grease my hair with my own homemade pomade, and live in tract housing. No sense in defying your true calling.
It's been a difficult transition, no doubt, but made easier by the boost from the friendly Hallmark people. I've bought my own home in the West Hills neighborhood of New Jersey, not more than a stone's throw from the commune offices—in fact, this morning I hit Raoul Dunkin from my bathroom window. It's a lovely neighborhood, full of friendly and successful people, the kind of neighborhood that usually gathers together to sign a petition keeping me out. But in this case they were slow and...
º Last Column: Rok the Boat
º more columns
The tale of how I escaped the angry mobs of Haitian dissidents is the most chilling, exciting, and inspiring story that has ever happened to me. Consequently, I sold the rights to it so it could be made into a Hallmark movie (look for it on CBS this Fall, with James Woods as the handsome Rok Finger-type character). This means I can't tell you about it, but don't worry, I have a number of stories almost as amazing. Have I told you how I started the Atkins diet this week?
It's part of my effort to rebuild my life now that I'm back on steady shore and have forsaken my pirate ways. No doubt anyone would miss the charming shanty of the sea, but I believe I'm better off—some are meant to sail the sea and poach whales or whatever else there is to do out there, while others of us are landlubbers. And I lub land. I was meant to wear stifling three-piece suits, grease my hair with my own homemade pomade, and live in tract housing. No sense in defying your true calling.
It's been a difficult transition, no doubt, but made easier by the boost from the friendly Hallmark people. I've bought my own home in the West Hills neighborhood of New Jersey, not more than a stone's throw from the commune offices—in fact, this morning I hit Raoul Dunkin from my bathroom window. It's a lovely neighborhood, full of friendly and successful people, the kind of neighborhood that usually gathers together to sign a petition keeping me out. But in this case they were slow and I benefit from it.
Back to the old routine, the kind of life Rok Finger was meant to live. I get up, eat breakfast, read the morning paper, make tomorrow's breakfast, and drive to work to get a full day's job done making up column ideas. It's such a natural fit I don't even know why I ever left. Which is not an exaggeration, I have completely blanked on the original reason I left the country. I'm not even sure where I went—Angola? They had accents but spoke English. I seem to remember having a wife, but the specifics escape me.
Don't worry about my companionship, though—as always, in tow with me is good friend Camembert. But he's only towing me until my sprained ankle heals. Those violent political revolutions can be hell on the joints. It's just as well I need his assistance, because now I'm in a position to finally pay back all the friendship Camembert has shown me over the years, allowing him a room in my new house. He repeatedly told me he was content to return to his old apartment, but since the mob torched it in our absence, it's not quite as nice as it once was. It's all for the better—two better roommates you could never find! Camembert and I have never even had an argument. I tell him what to do and he does it, no argument.
Not that we don't have some minor problems. He complains the house is not handicapped accessible, but I say as long as you have a window the house is accessible. Camembert's requested I put in a ramp somewhere, either that or move his bedroom down to the first floor, and I suppose I might throw him a bone on one of those requests. A ramp would be a lot of fun to ride that chair down, if you put it at the right angle. I might even be able to put a loop in it, as the rollercoasters do, as a nice surprise.
Some might call this new old life of mine boring—well, I say shut-up. In a pleasant, smiling sort of way. I welcome the safe, the secure, the familiar. At least until something better than the dead-end suburban existence comes along. º Last Column: Rok the Boatº more columns
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|  August 29, 2005
First Griswald Dreck Chat TranscriptHey gang, chain gangs, and other gang members. Welcome to the commune’s first ever live chat with Griswald Dreck, answerman extraordinaire. Send in your questions now, and Dreck will put a hurting on them when he gets here at 2pm ET.
2:01pm
 Griswald Dreck:
It’s on, bitch!
Roger (Tumora, GA): hey Griswald what’s the biggestthing you ever et?
Griswald Dreck:
Roger, Roger, Roger. Why do you grace my inbox with your inimitable presence? No really, why? The courts want to know. Rather than answer your question, Roger, I’d prefer to provide you with a service you’ll come to find far more valuable. I’d like you kick you in the nuts and prevent you from breeding. Since this is difficult to accomplish through the forum of an online chat, instead I’ll recommend walking up to the next pretty girl you see, and telling her you love what she’s done with the wallpaper in her bedroom. Should accomplish the same ends.
Chancey (STL):
Hey Griswald, love the column. Or I loved a column, actually I’m not sure who wrote it. But whatever. Anyway, some...
º Last Column: The Fall of the Roman Empire
º more columns
Hey gang, chain gangs, and other gang members. Welcome to the commune’s first ever live chat with Griswald Dreck, answerman extraordinaire. Send in your questions now, and Dreck will put a hurting on them when he gets here at 2pm ET.
2:01pm
Griswald Dreck:
It’s on, bitch!
Roger (Tumora, GA): hey Griswald what’s the biggestthing you ever et?
Griswald Dreck:
Roger, Roger, Roger. Why do you grace my inbox with your inimitable presence? No really, why? The courts want to know. Rather than answer your question, Roger, I’d prefer to provide you with a service you’ll come to find far more valuable. I’d like you kick you in the nuts and prevent you from breeding. Since this is difficult to accomplish through the forum of an online chat, instead I’ll recommend walking up to the next pretty girl you see, and telling her you love what she’s done with the wallpaper in her bedroom. Should accomplish the same ends.
Chancey (STL):
Hey Griswald, love the column. Or I loved a column, actually I’m not sure who wrote it. But whatever. Anyway, some asshole told me it was a scam to buy checks from the bank because the constitution says you can write a check on anything, like your ass or whatever, and the bank has to take it. Is this true? Have I really been throwing away dozens of dollars over the years on fluffy kitty checks that I didn’t even need. If so, consider me pissed.
Griswald Dreck:
Yeah Chancey, you’re an asshole. Oh, I’m sorry, that wasn’t the question. Getting to the point, yes you can write a check on pretty much anything and the bank will honor it, unless it’s a piece of fresh fish, because that gums up their machinery pretty badly. Over the years people have written checks on all kinds of things just to be funny or total dicks. Sometimes both, either funny total dicks or total funny dicks. My favorite is the story of the man who owed his neighbor $30, so he painted a $30 check on a door and dropped it on the neighbor from the roof as he was walking by. The beauty of that move is that you know the check will never be cashed, since it’s going to be in police custody as evidence in the murder trial. Sometimes you really can beat the system.
Philbert (Jewston, NJ):
That’s crazy dude. So, related question: Can you mail anything? Like if my bro in Philly lost one of his shoes, could I stick a stamp on 1 of mine and chuck it in the mailbox? If so, how much does that cost????????
Griswald Dreck:
It is true you can mail pretty much anything you want without a box, except for live tigers or knives with the handle cut off. Some joker tried both of those in one week back in 1974 and ruined the fun for the rest of us. So yes, you could put a stamp on a shoe and mail it if you wanted to. But it would only really be worth it if the shoe was covered in dog shit, as an act of revenge against an enemy and/or a nasty postal carrier. Pretty much anything else weird you could mail would fall into the “Shoulda mailed the dog shit shoe instead” category. Also, as a word of advice, you should probably mail your brother both of your shoes, or else you’re both going to look like dipshits. More so.
Bob (Pittsburg):
Hey GD- how come they got rid of bullpen carts in baseball?
Griswald Dreck:
Ah, Bob. I thought you’d stopped writing. As I’ve explained several times before, they stopped using bullpen carts in baseball because some insane asshole from Pittsburg kept writing to the commissioner, asking him why they used bullpen carts in baseball. This was driving everyone nuts, and the powers that be in MLB thought that getting rid of the carts would remedy the problem. Obviously they were as mistaken about this as they were about their decision to put fat men in stretchy pants.
E. Zender (Shanesly, VT):
Mr. Dreck: So, what’s it like working with all those crazy personalities at the commune? With free spirits like Omar Bricks and Ivana Folger-Balzac around, I bet it’s a blast!
Griswald Dreck:
It’s a lot like playing on a softball team with the Manson family, except without the fun of playing softball.
Griswald Dreck:
It’s a lot like playing on a softball team with the Manson family, except without the fun of playing softball.
Big Dan (Penn St):
i’ve always wondered what it would be like to fart in space. so??
Griswald Dreck:
Finally, a thoughtful, civilized question. I’m kidding of course Dan. But I’ll still answer your question in order to fulfill my foolish New Year’s Resolution to share the light of knowledge with the dull masses. And the answer is this: You still wouldn’t have any friends. Sorry.
E. Zender (Shanesly, VT):
Mr. Dreck, any chance that any of the esteemed commune staff will be attending the communeCon (a.k.a. Seventh commune Enthusiasts Club meeting) here in Shanesly in November? I hope I know the answer!
Griswald Dreck:
Not unless you count as a staff member, Emil. In other words: ha ha ha.
Rick T. (Noboken, VT):
How comes when you see the reflection of your face in a spoon, it’s all upsidown and shit? Freakshoww!
Griswald Dreck:
This has a lot to do with the way light refracts off of concave and convex surfaces, Rick. Because of the way that physics work, when you concentrate hard enough on the concave surface of a spoon, the light beams re-arrange your facial molecules until your entire face is on upside-down. Thankfully the face goes back pretty quick after you take away the spoon, unless it’s a full moon. Try not to do this around any small children, Rick, as it may shake them loose of their sanity.
Dennis Falkner (Cleveland, OH):
In Star Wars: A New Hope, rogue space smuggler Han Solo boasts to Luke and Obi-Wan that the Millennium Falcon could make the famed “Kessel Run” in under twelve parsecs. But a parsec is a measure of distance, not time! Did Solo mean that he had somehow found a shorter route through the Run, or was Lucas simply that naïve about matters of space/time?!?
Griswald Dreck:
I’m sorry, did you ask a question? I stopped reading after you mentioned Star Wars. Okay, I’m lying, I stopped reading after I heard you were from Cleveland. I mean come on.
E. Zender (Shanesly, VT):
Me again Griswald. If you could be any historical figure, past or present (commune employee or otherwise) who would it be? And why?
Griswald Dreck:
Okay, last Emil Zender question. There is only one correct answer to this question, regardless of whom you ask, and that answer is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. End of debate.
lenny (kitchin):
if you could eat your own face, how come you can’t eat your own face? i think you could do it except for the mouth part, because that’s like one of them snakes eats his own butt. But the rest of it, you could eat that. how come stamps got people on ‘em?
Griswald Dreck:
That's my cue!
2:15pm
Griswald Dreck:
I’m afraid my time’s up folks, thanks for taking part in the first-ever commune live chat. They hope to do this again some time. By “they” I mean the powers-that-be at the commune. Notice that I didn’t use the more-common “we.” Please notice this. Goodnight. º Last Column: The Fall of the Roman Empireº more columns
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Milestones1988: Future commune staff photographer Junior Bacon takes a photo that shocks the nation, until experts determine that the Sasquatch-looking thing in the picture is actually future commune editor Red Bagel.Now HiringExperienced Spelunker. Needed to find a way into Ned Nedmiller's office and see if there's anyone still alive in there. Ability to speak Dutch a plus.Top-Grossing Documentaries| 1. | Dicking Around on the Set of 'Attack of the Clones' | | 2. | The Making of Anal Armageddon | | 3. | Thomas Kincade: Watch Me Shine | | 4. | The Making of Anal Armageddon 2: The Lost Footage | | 5. | More Kittens Batting at String | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Turner Volst 11/11/2002 Season of the BitchSpencer Chowheim had read every gun magazine ever and was intimately acquainted with the tensile strength of vulcanized Black Forrest steel. He was likewise an expert on the failure rate of Zlotsinger 9mm rounds and the temperature at which gunpowder combusts, which, as he knew, was 7500 degrees Fahrenheit. He knew the relevant facts as well as anyone, possibly even better. But still, it sat funny on his rectum. He should have brought the Mannlicher.
No doubt, this was a job for the Steyr Mannlicher. Why had he brought the Rosenbold 9mm? He'd be lucky if he got out of this alive.
Make no mistake of it; the Rosenbold is a fine gun. The cool glow of its carbon-shanked blue steel barrel is enough to set any rogue double agent's nerves at ease. This had been...
Spencer Chowheim had read every gun magazine ever and was intimately acquainted with the tensile strength of vulcanized Black Forrest steel. He was likewise an expert on the failure rate of Zlotsinger 9mm rounds and the temperature at which gunpowder combusts, which, as he knew, was 7500 degrees Fahrenheit. He knew the relevant facts as well as anyone, possibly even better. But still, it sat funny on his rectum. He should have brought the Mannlicher.
No doubt, this was a job for the Steyr Mannlicher. Why had he brought the Rosenbold 9mm? He'd be lucky if he got out of this alive.
Make no mistake of it; the Rosenbold is a fine gun. The cool glow of its carbon-shanked blue steel barrel is enough to set any rogue double agent's nerves at ease. This had been paramount in Chowheim's reasoning during his weeks of deliberation over what gun to bring on this mission. But now, actually in the field, it was clear that he'd brought the wrong gun.
Maybe it was the unprecedented danger of the mission that had Chowheim feeling uncertain, or the fact that he had leftovers from dinner still sitting in the trunk, possibly going spoiled. It was a cold night out, but still… what if the Audi's triple-lacquered sheet metal skin trapped too much of his body heat from the ride over inside the cabin of the car, and that heat had transferred through the back seats and into the trunk? It was quite possible that the meal-retaining leg of this mission was already in jeopardy, a veritable code blue. It was clear that mayo was the key. How much mayo do they put on those sandwiches, anyway? Chowheim smiled, as his months of preparation were finally paying off. Two ounces of mayo. A half-ounce over the national average. He would have to cut his losses with the sandwich and press forward with the remainder of the mission. That bird had flown.
Chowheim wiped the condensed moisture off the face of his watch, a reminder of the city's foggy streets or possibly a remnant from when he dropped the Rosenbold in a urinal at the restaurant. A quarter to one. It could be any minute now. He folded up his coat collar, made from an expensive blend of microfiber and elk snout, and crouched down further in the entryway. The sidewalk glistened in the strange glow of a streetlight; moist from the fog that dragged its way through the city, or possibly urine. Chowheim ran through a year's worth of police reports and evaporation tables in his head.
It was urine.
A cold drop of water dripped on Chowheim's hat, ran down the back of his neck, ducked inside his collar, shot down his spine and made a beeline straight for his asscrack. Nerves of steel or no nerves of steel, that was really starting to piss him off, and he hoped the bitch would come soon.
Chowheim began scouting out angles of approach from his perch in the entryway and calculating the probability of each, given the moon's orbit in Pisces. He had it figured down to the third decimal place when a voice interrupted his figuring.
"Excuse me, can I get by?" The voice came from a woman of the female persuasion.
Chowheim stepped to the side reflexively and uttered an apology before he realized. As the door shut and locked behind her, he deftly de-pantsed the Rosenbold. It was her! CIA mole Nikki Santana! He fired the gun into the air several times in hopes that curiosity would lure her back. Silence crept in like a fog as the sound of the echoing gunshots faded away. He waited.   |
