Beverly Hills Demands $47 Billion in Federal Aid

n an impassioned plea to Washington legislators today, spokespeople for the commonwealth of Beverly Hills announced the need for federal aid to help rejuvenate their blighted neighborhoods. Spokesperson Corkey Wells commented:

"It's really sad what's become of our once-prestigious community. Hardly a day goes by that I don't see scores of former child stars sitting on their lawns, drinking 40 oz wine spritzers while daydreaming about the time Solest Moon Frye came to their pool party in the eighth grade. And it's getting awfully hard to keep Scott Baio from stealing the emeralds out of my pool filter! Our neighborhoods are truly in decline. Why, just the other day I saw Tom Berringer driving an American car! Yes I did!"

Washington legislators could not be reached for a stag party. I mean, comment. Screw this.

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Some of you out there may think it's all fun and games here at the commune, but I assure you it's not. Fun and games were eliminated when I returned months ago, about the same time I implemented the 30% pay reductions and started receiving those death threats in my inbox. But you can't always rule with an iron thumb, as I learned shortly after being arrested for assault with an iron thumb a while back. Sometimes you have to implement diplomacy. This may be one of those times.

I am all for the occasional goofing off, when I am completely unaware of it. I heartily endorse a work environment where everyone is comfortable when I'm not present. However, when my good will is abused like a 14-year-old's johnson, it's no more Mr. Nice Guy, Alice Cooper. Hence I instituted the strict policy that all commune employees, even the meager people, are no longer allowed to host personal websites. This not only goes for time spent at the office, but time away from the commune as well, and probably infringes upon quite a few constitutional rights, not that I'm bragging.

It is necessary, I assure you. I couldn't have cared less about what my staff did in their off hours a few short weeks ago, and lament all that money wasted on expensive digital videotape. Then I discovered the unsettling image of Ted Ted, half-nude, and dressed entirely as a woman. You couldn't see the naughty bits, thanks to his concealing hands and a well-placed teddy bear, but you might as well have scraped my eyes out with a melon baler and saved me the pain. No one here could forget that frightful image, especially since print-outs of it keep winding up on the hallway bulletin board.

My confidence in Ted Ted was shaken until I found out he took the photos early in his career, when a photographer friend of his assured him all reporters got their foot in the door the same way. Word has it he even produced some candid shots of Dan Rather to prove his point, which I won't argue with, since I don't want to see them myself. But Ted Ted promised the photos were quite old and he no longer engaged in such antics and the man who posted them would mysteriously turn up missing by the end of the week. However, this did not end the whole affair. As usual, with my staff, it was only the beginning.

I'm sure it's been the same case with friends you know, one friend is found looking quite attractive in drag in an old picture, then suddenly everyone is claiming they would look better dressed as a woman. If they want to make such claims and argue them over the water cooler, fine. If they want to host a private party where they all dress up just to prove a point, I have no problem with that either. When they start devoting an exorbitant amount of work time and personal finances to hosting websites where they are dressed as women, unbeknownst to site surfers, and ask people to rate their attractiveness in relation to each other, well, that's where I draw the line. Admittedly, my line-drawing was a little late on this occasion.

As I made clear to them yesterday, I will no longer tolerate randomly surfing for poontang and discovering one of my reporters wearing a teddy and garters. This also goes to the columnists and IT associates. Particularly Randy. Your news work is getting sloppy, the broadband out there is being tested, and I am sick of reading letters from lonely prisoners.

It is also a waste of time. It is quite clear Ivan Nacutchacokov is the real honey amongst you. Suck it up and give the queen his crown, fellas.

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Time to face the facts, Omar Bricks loves Mexican food. I am a certified Mexican Food Freak. Not to be confused with a Certified Mexican Freak, that's some kind of license you need to wrestle down there, keeps them from losing all their wrestling jobs to people from Tennessee. It's all a part of NAFTA.

Part of the fun of Mexican food is pretending you speak Spanish. Because what the hell do those people know, you could be Juan Fuckin' Valdez for all the waitress cares. She just wants to get back into the kitchen to do another line of crank before the buzz wears off. So you can really lay it on thick, rambling off some nonsense about chimichanga presidente allegro amigos. It's a blast. Sometimes you can even pass for a local if you order everything BellGrande and don't ask for mustard. They don't put mustard on shit down there, don't ask me why. Another trick is to put your exclamation points upside-down, if you happen to be writing something down. That doesn't come up much when you're ordering food, I know, but you'll impress the shit out of everybody if you can pull it off.

Sometimes I like to really do it up and go in there wearing a blanket with a neck-hole cut in it and some kind of crazy garage-sale hat. The busboys love that shit, I come in and it's all "Ah, gringo! Chinga tu madre pendejo!" It's like Cheers, it's awesome. One time I came in strumming a mariachi guitar I found in the trash and those guys had to hold each other back from coming over to high-five me. They love it when they see white guys who are down with their culture.

Mexican food is great because it's all interchangeable. You can order anything off the menu and it's no worries because it's all the same shit. They might put the cheese on top instead of on the inside or it might have rice and beans instead of beans and rice, but it's not like they're suddenly going to whip out a tray of duck's nuts or anything like when you're fucking around with the menu at an Asian place. About the worst thing that can happen is you get shredded beef instead of ground beef, I guess they have a lot of problems with turbo-prop planes crash landing in cattle fields down in Mexico or something, I don't know. But overall the risk factor is pretty much no promblemo.

The biggest problem I ever had with Mexican food was one time in a restaurant when I wanted to re-enact one of those scenes from the Westerns where the big fat Mexican guy is sitting there with chiquitas on his lap and he's drinking beer and eating grapes or whatever. You know the guy, always laughing at the white guys, never takes a shower, gets shot at the end. Anyway, I wanted to be that guy for the course of a meal, but the waitress just wasn't down with it. Why she'd rather be busting her ass carrying hot plates instead of sitting on somebody's lap and eating grapes is anybody's guess, maybe she wasn't really Mexican.

Come to think of it, I don't think there are too many big Mexican families in Wisconsin that are cranking out blonde waitresses named Gwenyth these days. Shit. That's the last time I'll eat at Chili's.

"Authentic Mexican" my ass. Bricks Out.

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