he entire Hundred Acre Woods were in a state of shock this week with the harrowing discovery of the bodies of local favorites Tigger and Piglet, in the aftermath of an apparent murder-suicide. Authorities are uncertain as to what motivated the affable jungle cat to such drastic action, but evidence points to Tigger having a long history of mental illness.

“In the end, Tigger just wasn’t able to bounce back from his manic depression,� the tiger’s psychotherapist, Dr. Melvin Dirth, explained sadly. “One day he’d be bouncing off the walls, driving everyone around him nutso! But then the next, you’d find him down at Eeyore’s place, watching sad old black and white movies and gorging himself on Valentine candies.�

According to friends, the effervescent tiger was also afflicted with mild schizophrenia, haunted at times by an imaginary beast known only as the “Heffalump,� which Dr. Dirth believes represented the exteriorization of all Tigger’s inner demons.

“I think we all have an inner Heffalump,� explained Dr. Dirth. “For some of us, it might be a weight problem, or a fear of heights. For Tigger, it was some kind of deadly woodland beast no one had ever seen. Tigger battled his inner demons by pretending to be a jagular on the prowl, though he’d usually only end up scaring Pooh and Piglet in the end.�

“I keep thinking about the last thing he said to me,� sobbed Hundred Acre Wood resident and Tigger acquaintance Kanga. “He said: ‘Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! TTFN!’ I didn’t realize he really meant ta-ta-forever.�

A funeral service held Sunday featured a mournful poetic reading of the lyrics to the Tigger favorite “The Most Wonderful Thing About Tiggers� and a gag coffin filled with springy nut-can snakes, which everyone appreciated except for Eeyore.

Less is known about Piglet, the diminutive victim that friends describe as a shy, reedy-voiced pig with a fondness for taxidermy. Family friend Winnie the Pooh, a bear of very little brain and longtime Piglet confidant, paints a similar picture.

“Piglet loved nothing more than smacking his lips all the way down to the bottom of a delicious pot of honey,� Pooh reminisced fondly. “No, now wait a minute. That’s me! Who was Piglet again?�

Sentiment and remembrance gave way to practical concerns over the weekend, as industry insiders began to gossip over who would be taking Tigger and Piglet’s places in the two highly-anticipated upcoming Disney films about the Hundred Acre gang, A Roo with a View and Eeyore’s directorial debut, Jackass 2. Though final casting decisions have not yet been made, early rumor points to Tony the Tiger and Porky Pig as strong likely replacements for the deceased pair.

“If you ask me, and I realize that no one has, though they should,� rambled Tigger neighbor and woodland asshole Owl, “Tigger was a victim of cartoon violence. You can’t let children or large cats grow up watching millions of acts of senseless violence on the television and not expect it to penetrate their psyche. Just look at the violence with which Tigger lived his life, crashing around like a whirling dervish, the end result should have been obvious! I saw this coming a long ways away, which is why I’m the only Hundred Acre Wood resident with doorknobs on his doors. That stupid cat never did figure out how to use a doorknob.�

Iraq blah blah blah Suicide blah blah blah Dead

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Hey commune folk. Stu here.

Thanks to a little bird who gave me the word I'm now officially up to speed on the whole situation. The Cubans, the whole acid rain deal, and the clandestine adventures of your friend and mine, Senior Swashbuckle. Some pretty wild shit if I do say so myself, and in case anyone's taking notes: I do. Now that I've got it all under control I feel comfortable sending you this. Yes! A human pancreas! Gross! No, but seriously, that was a joke, and if I really scared you then I think it's time to admit that you have absolutely no idea what a human pancreas really looks like. I think they have informational pamphlets down at the DMV that can help you with that. In actual actuality, I have sent you this column, at least in some loosey-goosey futuristic sense of the word "sent," you beamed it down or whatever from the intergalactic informational alcove where I had seen to it being stored. You know the score.

This is it, folks, the Stu Umbrage Show. What you see is what you get, and that includes more topless birds than the Tropicana and Charlie Sheen's house combined. So if you don't like it you can blame me, and also kiss my black ass while you're at it. On a side note, I was trying to get Diana Ross to be my column sidekick here, but it didn't work out because she had no idea who I was and also I use phrases like "kiss my black ass" far too often.

Sure, the idea of a sidekick for a humor column is a fairly revolutionary one, but I think it's solid. After all, I don't hear any of you laughing. Which may be some kind of technical issue we haven't resolved yet, but in the meantime I could use somebody to sit over here and laugh like I just pulled the tonsils out of the lead guy from Weezer when I type the punchlines. Carson made it work on the Tonight Show, which revealed the show's roots: him and McMahon sitting in Johnny's basement, smashed on Absolut and babbling incoherently about current events and Ed's supernaturally large goiter. But damnit, it worked. They didn't make an afterschool special about it, but it worked.

This has been a crazy year already, and I'm not even talking about those cannibals they found living in the walls at the White House. Those guys got a bad rap, you know what I'm talking about? It reminded me of the last few Public Enemy albums.

Anybody else out there realize that salsa is a food as well as a dance style? I've never been so embarrassed in my life; I always thought you had to be a bum to get kicked out of a Mexican restaurant. This country's going to hell and nobody's stopping for bathroom breaks, be advised.

I've often wondered what our medical profession would be like if cancer gave you really big breasts instead of just rotting out your organs and whatnot. Dollars to dodos says they'd be force-feeding skinny blonde broads asbestos in day spas all over L.A., and the doctors would all turn their attentions to curing whatever the hell is wrong with Pauly Shore. Mark my words, on the off chance something truly freaky happens and that situation actually comes up.

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By now everybody in the tri-state area knows about the fiery death of the Bricksmobile, that's old news. And really, big deal. It's something that happens to everybody at least once in their life, having their car blow up and tear the garage doors off of three of their neighbors' houses, and getting sued and all that. Just one of those trials of life things like having to waddle into the emergency room with a coke bottle stuck up your ass. No fun, for sure, but it's not like it's your own personal torment that nobody else can relate to. Just part of living la vida loca, like that Taco Bell commercial says.

But this latest wrinkle in the saga is just plain different. First, as I'm sure you've heard, I get banned from every taxi company in the city. Every one! Even the ones that don't speak English. Don't even ask me how that happens; the logistics of it are mind-blowing. I did learn a valuable lesson from this experience, though. If you're going to reenact the "throwing the flaming jack-o-lantern at the dude's head" scene from Sleepy Hollow to surprise one of your friends while he's on a blind date, don't do it from a taxi. Rent a car or something, I don't know. Because a lifetime citywide taxi ban is one hard motherfucking pill to swallow, that's all that can be said about that.

So now I've got no way of getting around, except for this shitty old Schwinn I found in the garage that only works in the highest gear. Believe me, I tried some pretty creative schemes to get out of having to ride that goddamned thing. Like ordering a pizza to be delivered, then riding back to Dominos with the delivery guy, then calling on their phone to order a pizza from another place closer to where I wanted to get to, and so on and so forth. Turns out that gets pretty expensive around the third or fourth leg of the trip, in retrospect I probably should have laid off ordering the hot wings and the extra 2-liters of Coke and whatnot. Not to mention that some of those guys get downright weird about you riding in their car with them back to the pizza place, trying to pull away when you're just grabbing the door handle and all kinds of rude shit like that.

So anyway, a couple hundred bucks later Omar Bricks is back to busting his ass on the goddamned garage sale bike. And let me tell you, if you ever want to work up a healthy hatred of your fellow man, try riding a bike to work. People expect you to ride over in the gutter like some kind of taxi-banned wino on his way to the wine factory or wherever the hell it is winos work. And they get all bent out of shape when you get off your bike to push it up a hill, like they've got somewhere to be all of a sudden. Christ, I wouldn't even be shlepping it up these hills at all if anybody respected the bike lane on the freeway like they're supposed to.

All I know is that this bike thing can't last long. It's all fine and good if you're eight and you don't know any better, but what in the world do they make adult-sized bikes for? I guess to give drivers something to laugh at on their morning commune, cut down on road rage or something. Sounds reasonable. But Omar Bricks is done being the rush-hour punch line; I'm clearly ready for a new set of wheels. Maybe a scooter or something, do they still make those? Those Devo guys sure seemed happy cruising around on those things. Not that I'm going to wear the lampshade hat or anything, I just want some kind of vehicle that does the peddling for me. If I've learned one thing from this whole ordeal, it's that peddling is for suckers.

That, and don't set your car on fire based on an infomercial. So two things. Maybe three, if you count the taxi ban. Shit, maybe I should look into getting some college credits out of this thing. Turning the whole situation on its head, to my advantage and all.

Now that's what they call finding the Kraut's silver linens.

Bricks Out.

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