ith their famously stoic façade put to the ultimate test, Londoners came through with flying colors this week, failing to register the slightest emotion in the face of stunning terror attacks on the city’s mass transit system that left 50 dead and over 700 wounded.

“Oh yes, it was quite a mess,� explained commuter Harold Alburn, who was aboard one of the bombed subway trains and only survived due to being caked in a human cocoon formed by the flaming remains of his fellow passengers. “That rail line’s going to be down for weeks, you have to assume.�

“This is to be expected of the British,� explained psychologist/ historian hybrid Dennis Mugrew. “I mean, what did you expect? Wild, hyperbolic shows of emotion? These people didn’t even have their pulses raised by WWII. Even when London itself was being bombed in 1940, people were still going out to the pubs and leading their lives as if there weren’t giant bomb craters in the street, and acting as if the pub itself was not on fire. Frankly, I don’t think total thermonuclear annihilation would have much of an effect on the English disposition.�

“Yes yes, bloody terrible,� mumbled carpet-layer Damon Brink semi-intelligibly, hoisting his customary 7am pint.

“This resolute façade of dour, dutiful melancholy has served the English well through eons of adversity and truly shitty weather,� explained England expert and grinder-sandwich-eating champion Maxwell Tuft. “It’s like American optimism or weird Japanese cartoon sex fetishes. You don’t mess with success.�

“It’s a bloody shame about those people,� sighed stockbroker Theodore McCartney, who lost his entire family in the blasts. “You certainly feel for their loved ones. But, you know, life must go on.�

“Nope, sorry, I’m afraid I’ve had my humanity bred out of me, perhaps eons ago,� explained tailor Nigel Ruffalo when asked about the attacks, with an upper lip so stiff he could be mistaken for a duck.

Authorities believe the attacks to be the work of a terrorist cell with the inappropriately-hilarious name of “The Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe,� which, as the name describes, is thought to be both secret and organized, and reportedly allows only cell members into its tree fort. The British have saved their strongest displays of emotion for these alleged terrorists.

“That’s just not playing cricket,� complained Londoner Angie Lowell, the most enraged person in all of England. “Them bad sorts ought to be put to for what they done, had a real talking-to, you know. Can’t have this sort of thing going on, mucking about on the trains when we’ve got places to be.�

Meanwhile, the reporting of this story was complicated by confusion over interview subjects who claimed to have been on the tube at the time of the attacks, which this American reporter assumed to mean the television, leading to a mistaken belief that everyone in England gets to be on TV. This reporter’s intense jealousy, however, soon abated as soon as he learned that “the tube� is a quaint British euphemism for the toilet.

Iraq blah blah blah Suicide blah blah blah Dead

Big Whup: Whale Swims Across the English Channel

Heather Graham’s Career Found Dead in Apartment

Polish Roof Falls in Following “Drinks Are on the House” Debacle

As of this writing it's been about one week since our building burned down. You may have seen it on your local evening news, or read about it in Fire! magazine, if such a thing exists. I can't say I have many regrets about it, although I would have preferred to have been given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by a female firefighter. So I do have regrets, I suppose.

The whole "everything I own completely destroyed" comes at a pretty pivotal time in the commune history, as I was quite on the fence about whether or not to continue my fruitless Don Quixote-like pursuit of informing the public of the conspiracies around them, or to just retire and dedicate my life to hot-tubbin'. I've long begun to suspect that the Internet is nothing more than a passing fad, and short of creating a MySpace site for the commune, there is no way to distinguish one's self on the worldwide web. So to summarize, I've decided to take the commune to a quarterly pamphlet publishing routine.

As the commune started as a pamphlet, some might say we've taken a step back. I prefer to think of it as walking all the way around the earth until you wind up back in the exact same spot where you once stood. It's nothing personal against our readers or our staff, although there are a few of you who will one day get what's coming to you, nothing personal, it's just that I've poured way too much of my time and money into this anonymous enterprise and I don't believe we've affected nearly enough readers. If only the truth were more contagious, or I could infect everyone in the world with some kind of computer-born virus. This would not cause death or pain, this theoretical virus, but spread the love and joy that humanity can overcome the darkest things about itself; and possibly cause some rectal itching, who can say with theoretical computer-born viruses? This has been my dream. But as with all dreams, it must come to an end when we wake.

This is not the end of the commune—not by far. I mean, it is for you, sure, but not the end for the commune staff, myself chiefly among them. We've all become close friends, and I'm sure they will have little problem doing the exact same work we do now with no office, an unprofessional outlet for their work, and absolutely no paychecks, not even coupons or Bagelbucks. They're dedicated like that, and it's not because they're stupid, no matter what you might have overhead me saying loudly while drinking it up. If anything, our low-budget guerrilla-style reporting will bring this family closer together. Particularly Raoul Dunkin, who most definitely needs to be brought closer together with force. I've already bought the perfect van to act as our new office, and as soon as I find out for sure who survived the fire we will all make our way south to Mexico, where publishing costs for pamphlets are simply insane.

It's been rough for them all, this news I have yet to tell them, but we'll take it in stride. I'm not saying we will never publish on the Internet again, and if Emile Zender, lifelong subscriber to all things commune, deems it worth his time, he's welcome to transfer our smaller publications to the website version, which he is inheriting. And basically, as our last note, I think covering Paris Hilton going to prison pretty much finalizes all the news we could ever hope to report. What's more important than wealthy people being jailed for driving felonies? The world has turned upside-down and on its ear. Which reminds me, I promised the gang we could Van Twister a few minutes ago. It's like Twister, but in a van. So enjoy this, what may be our final commune. And if Ivana Folger-Balzac asks you where everyone disappears to when she gets back from her vacation, tell her we all died in the fire. I would wink at you, but this is text. Thanks for all the fond memories and however many years of loyal readership.

º Last Column: Return to the Bermuda Shorts Triangle
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I'm certainly glad people have come back around to pop music once again—it was too long and too often I would find myself in a bar, with friends, defending the merits of artists like the New Kids on the Block, or Debbie Gibson. True, those stars have faded into sweet yesteryear, but at least pop music remains strong. Stronger than ever, one might say.

Yes, for those who would denounce Hilary Duff as a second-tier Taylor Dane, let me, for one, confess my enthusiastic glee for today's pop star. They are more engaging, more attractive, and I dare say, even more enduring than the pop stars of days gone by. This year marks Britney Spears' seventh as a top-of-the-charts entertainer. Does that sound like a flash in the pan to you? I think not.

Still, the press coverage of the modern pop star leaves something to be desired. Yes, Rolling Stone may put Britney on their cover, and People may tell us she owns a nightclub and is moving into the foray of films. But what about the music? How is it we so easily forget it's the songs that made us love her, not her beautiful features and her body. Why are more magazines and television interviewers not asking her where she gets her ideas? I want to know where those songs come from. I, for one, want to know what goes through her mind when she sings "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman." I'm always reminded of the Bob Marley classic "No Woman, No Cry" when I hear those aching notes she sings. For that matter, how does she choose those songs she interprets? Why is it she knew, instinctively, her version of the much-covered Stones hit "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" would stand out as a hit, and not fade into music history as a forgotten note?

Of course, some would challenge, quite fairly, that most modern pop-stars are overproduced; the studioesque sheen is too thick to hear the tremendous textures of their voices and the individual instruments. I agree, and yet I disagree. I can't turn down a good Jessica Simpson album, no matter how slick and manufactured it initially sounds to me. But to some extent, I'm with you—the only way to hear these pop performers is live. Oh, the glory! To be sitting front row at an N*Sync concert, to hear those fluid notes sail over the audience, it's as close to heaven on earth as we get in this life.

Not that I can afford concert tickets these days, for what TicketMaster charges. So mostly I just pick up bootlegs. I have a few I've recorded myself, but like most bootleg collectors, I receive more by trading those already in my possession. Not that I'm adverse to buying them outright, even if it goes against the spirit of the true pop music bootleg collector. Just last week I traded two separate Aaron Carter bootlegs I own (one at the Hard Rock Café, London, the other at the Fillmore) and a Spice Girls at Budokan just so I could get a tape of demos and outtakes from Lindsay Lohan's debut album. Did I get ripped-off? I don't think of it like that. I have my copies, and the sound quality is quite spectacular on them, but what is most important is that I avail myself to the most recent pop phenomenon available, and Lindsay Lohan is it right now. As an actress and a singer (a regular double-threat), I firmly believe Lohan will be the most popular breakout media star since Jennifer Love-Hewitt.

And I needn't tell you, it makes me embarrassed to be a pop fan when you see something like the Ashlee Simpson "Saturday Night Live" scandal from a few months back. I'm sure she was sincere in her excuse for it, but it did make all of us Ashlee Simpson fans look quite the fool.

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