Little Mexican Boy Separated from Father Useless in Advancing American Politics

ine-year-old Carlos Montoya has been separated from his father since his mother, aunt, and maternal grandparents smuggled him and themselves across the Mexican-U.S. border in late 1999 to find work across the border. After his mother mysteriously disappeared, believe to be carted away by a pimp named Slappy, Carlos has lived with his aunt and grandparents in a dumpster outside a class in a poverty-stricken area of San Pocos, California.

And, according to Attorney General Janet Reno, Carlos has done little, if anything, to advance the American political agenda.

"I don't want to point any accusatory fingers," Reno said in a recent press conference, as she scowled at the little boy, freshly arrived for the press conference from a filthy cardboard box, "but we could sure use a lot of help with free-trade between ourselves and Mexico. Let's just say Carlos isn't doing much to help."

Reporters were quick to remind Reno the Montoya boy is only nine, but Reno made a "pffft" sound with her lips and said, "Yeah, that's a good excuse. We all know there are kids out there younger than that who are doing a hell of a lot more to help out their country. I mean, I'm not naming names... but you know what I mean."

When asked if Montoya would be returned to his father, Reno shrugged and responded, "If he wants him. Lord knows we aren't going to waste the Supreme Court's time with this matter. Hell, I wouldn't take this little sumbitch to People's Court."

Reno laughed heartily at her own remarks, then belched loudly and said it tasted like eggs.

Lost Leaves Plotlines Half-Solved in Honor of Shooting Victims

MySpace to Offer Breaking News on What Ira Mankovics is Doing Right Now

Alec Baldwin Records Devastating Voice Mail Message for Shooter

Sony’s Poorly Timed “PS3 Price Massacre” Backfires

Everyone here has had a gay old time over the weekend, some an extremely gay old time, but I'm not naming names (Larry and Mitch). For the lateness in the year dictated it was time for the annual commune picnic/field day combination.

Why have you never heard of this before? you ask. To which I counter, What are you implying? If you're insinuating there's a conspiratorial angle to this picnic/field day of ours, I say you're pissing up the wrong rope. Go bother the president or some corporation, Upton Sinclair. I'm merely trying to tell everyone what a good time we had the annual company picnic/field day.

Anyone who's heard numerous compliments to Lil Duncan's sack-racing ability shouldn't be surprised Lil holds her title once again as queen in the sack. Raoul Dunkin came extremely close to winning this year, then suddenly stopped before the finish line—I would guess the idea of adding "queen in the sack" to his list of ever-growing titles wasn't a happy thought. Lil wouldn't have even been challenged, I expect, if I hadn't been sharing the sack with her. It was quite a confusing registration this year, let's leave it at that.

Bludney Plud came in last place, to no one's surprise. I sometimes think he relishes the attention for always coming in last. He does come in last in everything, including the Typing Contest and the Belle of the Picnic pageant. As usual, Lil felt a little robbed when Stigmata Spent won yet again, but if you have the legs, you just have 'em.

The picnic planners, me and my Sampson L. Hartwig hat, allowed a new event this year: The build-and-race-your-own-go-cart contest, following Omar's suggestion. We decided it was better to just hold the contest and see what happens rather than run the risk of Mr. Bricks crashing the picnic with another highly-flammable go-cart made at home. It was quite a rousing success, though Ivan Nacutchacokov lost two fingers in the process, even not involved in the building or racing. I say anything is a good time now that we have the ability to surgically reattach limbs.

The food was better than ever this year. Clarissa Coleman brought a soup made of things she was about to throw out from her fridge. I didn't actually try it, but Boner Cunningham said it was good shortly before passing out—it sounded like he was going to say good, more of a guttural sound from the back of the throat. Roland McShyster even provided the entertainment for the whole thing, a viewing of the Hulk movie he downloaded illegally from the internet. I'm not much on films, truthfully, but that Bill Bixby is quite the actor, and the Hulk looked quite realistic for computer animatronics. After that, Roland treated us to a surprise "jam" band featuring Omar Bricks, Rok Finger's friend Lee, and Ted Ted on drums. It was more aesthetic music than I'm used to, more appealing to the mind than fun for its musical sounds, such as Omar eating the microphone then regurgitating it, but I say let the kids enjoy their fun and let a stodgy older fellow like me stay out of the way.

If there's one thing I took home from that picnic, besides the peculiar brownies made by Boris Utzov, it was the commune is more like my family than my original family. At least I talk to the commune staff once a year or more. It was a shame to have spent so much time without them on the road, but I swear I'll make it up to them by being the best darned editor forever on out.

Also, if anyone knows the specific whereabouts of Features Editor Mazie the Chicken, please inform us immediately. I'm afraid I tore through the barbecue chicken roast a little too fast, and I'm worried for her safety.

º Last Column: Saddam Hussein: Dead or Alive 3
º more columns

Seems like we spent our entire childhoods preparing for things that never happened. How many hours did we waste watching filmstrips on not accepting rides from strangers, or classics like "Don't Play with Rover Foamymouth" that taught us the virtues of staying the hell away from dogs with rabies? How many sleepless nights spent worrying about total global annihilation from a nuclear war with the Russians? By that I mean other kids staying up all night worrying about nuclear death, God knows Omar Bricks didn't lose any shuteye over foreign policy issues. I was way too wrapped up in my plans to order a money printing press from an ad I saw in the back of a Casper comic book. I schemed for a year to get that damn money-mill, and then it finally came in the mail and it turns out the friggin' thing prints toy money! I shit you not, ten-dollar bills with a picture of a walrus on them. I could have shit, I was so mad. I might have. Gone were my dreams of printing up enough currency to buy every toy in the store and to build a functioning car out of Legos, with which to drive to Sea World. I'd have to wait until Christmas (and 1995, alternately) like all of the other kids, like a shmoe.

I guess every little kid had to have some major disillusionment when they were young, like having their parents die or ordering Sea Monkeys. I'm sure you know the drill: ad in the back of your comic book looks awesome and makes you think you're getting a clan of human-sized merpeople in the mail, and that in no time you'll be frolicking in their underwater kingdom and cutting deals to have the Sea Monkeys blow up your school and stuff your Social Studies teacher into a steamer trunk headed for the Dutch East Indies. Then of course the package comes in the mail and it's an ant farm and a packet of dust. Since you're a kid and therefore gullible as a mail-order bride, you follow the instructions, add water, and hold your breath to see if this chintzy crap will somehow transform into the awesome experience you've been envisioning. Instead, it ends up looking like that Watersquirtz ring-toss game you've had since you were five, the one that got all leaky and mildewy after it spent a few years at the bottom of your toybox. It dawns on you then that the only way you could use these "Sea Monkeys" to get back at your Social Studies teacher would be if you put them in her coffee. So you get mad, and stay that way for the better part of seven minutes until you realize that you're missing the beginning of Diff'rent Strokes, and it's the one where Willis tries to grow a goatee.

That's what I hear anyway, I never ordered the Sea Monkeys myself. My dad had ordered them when he was a kid and his bitter diatribes convinced me that they probably weren't worth the eight bucks. For that same reason we never got to go to Sea World, since there was no way dad was going to shell out his hard-earned money to see a bunch of water fleas swim around in a tank.

Thank Moses I had my dad to impart these pearls of wisdom on my young mind, since school definitely wasn't doing it. They were far too concerned that we were going to get kidnapped from the school parking lot or bitten by a stray dog if we somehow managed not to get nuked while doing drugs. Of course none of it ever happened, and we all survived (except for Tommy Frink, who peed in the sink and later ended up becoming a Scientologist). What the suits didn't understand was that there were far too many Transformers to collect for any of us to blow our allowances on crack pipes. Of course I may be a bad one to ask since I flunked out of the DARE program at the tender age of eight. I passed out when the officers were showing us how to tie off and locate a vein, so during the graduation ceremony I had to sit off to the side with the kid who'd had Mono the whole time.

Seems like they could have been showing us filmstrips on something useful, like not answering cell phones in movie theaters or what to do if the guy next to you on the plane is wearing a diaper made of plastic explosives. I'm pretty sure I know the proper position to be in when you're obliterated by a mushroom cloud, but search me for how you're supposed to disarm a pimply reject in a Korn shirt with an Uzi. Or even etiquette things like the polite ways to turn down a request to join a cult. That would come in handy. And karate. They definitely should have taught us karate.

But, you know, life goes on and some things you just have to learn for yourself. For everything else, I've been thinking about correspondence colleges.

Yeah. I should definitely open one!

Bricks out.

º Last Column: Windows XP: Fight the Future
º more columns