Saddam Hussein Sued for Mental Anguish

pon his return to Iraq's interim "sovereign" government, former dictator and one-time Iraqi big man Saddam Hussein was hit with a multimillion dollar lawsuit for damages, including punitive, and citing "mental anguish." The group, describing itself as "Now-Free Iraqis Completely Happy with American Help," had the dictator served in his new prison cell in Baghdad.

Lawyer for the plaintiffs Abazzi al-Shidir made the case to American newspapers.

"Finally, the Iraqi people are hitting back at the one who caused them so much grief and misery. If Saddam Hussein hadn't been hiding weapons of mass destruction—and we're all pretty sure they're around here somewhere—the U.S. never would have had to liberate us. Not to mention all the years of terrorism he committed upon his own people—which is us—and the mental anguish he inflicted. He'll be found guilty of war crimes, no doubt. But we want him to suffer financially as well. And with our new legal system, he will."

Al-Shidir could not comment on the demographics of those who filed the class-action suit, but assured the media they came from all walks of Iraqi life and represented the majority of the country. If the suit rewards the plaintiffs, al-Shidir confirmed they would use the money to rebuild Iraq's economy and restore order to the nation, and would likely draw up a contract for American companies to bid upon.

It was hard news for Saddam Hussein, who spent much of last week enduring the public handover to the new government of his former country. Hussein denounced all threats to bring him to justice in public trial.

"Ah, fuck you all, you hopeless puppets," grumbled Hussein, as a translator struggled to properly interpret the swear words. "You and the camels you road in on. You all didn't say shit when I was running the show. I piss on your justice. Ally McBeal had a less fictional courtroom. Whatever you do, don't charge me with possessing weapons of mass destruction—I would hate to see everyone strain themselves hauling in that much imaginary evidence. And in conclusion, suck me."

A garish gesture was made to the public, who all applauded, thinking it was something else.

The return of Saddam Hussein was sometimes overshadowed by the "surprise" handing over of the hot potato country from U.S. coalition forces, who are still there as resident muscle, to the interim government led by temporary Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who took over following the death of the most recent in a series of unsuccessful Prime Ministers, who were either killed in terror attacks, horrific missile-related accidents, suicides, or killed by their own dissatisfied people.

"Finally, Iraq is free," declared Allawi, raising his hands in the air and shaking them like a WWE wrestler.

Allawi then instituted martial law, for the protection of the city, and demanded the assets of suspected terrorists be frozen while they were investigated. The people were rushed off the streets by armed police since the curfew was quickly approaching, while the citizens said something in Iraqi, probably about how nice it was Saddam Hussein was finally out of power.

Iraq blah blah blah Suicide blah blah blah Dead

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"A man's home is his castle. Mine happens to be White Castle."

We've all been locked out of our houses or apartments or dumpsters before—not a week or month goes by we aren't evicted or simply lose our keys. Maybe you step out to get the neighbor's newspaper and the door slams behind you, then locks itself. Now you're standing bare-ass naked out in the hallway, or maybe in your neighbor's living room, and you can't get back in the house! Shit! Pardon my language.

Locked out is no problem. When you get locked into your house, that's when the shit hits the fan. Pardon my language. What do you do then? You can't call anybody for help from inside your own place. Unless you have a phone. Sure, you can open the window and yell for help, but the first time you start using profanity they'll just send cops to ticket you. You can't get the door open, and they'll only kick it down. Now you got a broke door.

I've been locked in before. It's not pretty. I don't want a broken door so it's usually a survival mission until the end of the month comes and the landlord shows up looking for the rent. Sometimes that could be as many as 60 days. That's a long time to live on whatever's in your refrigerator, or growing under it.

No one wants to think about it, but at some point you have to seriously consider eating the dog. It's only fair—if he could talk and wear clothes, he'd eat you. Don't think about making it a fair contest, like drawing straws. They don't say "cheating dogs" for no reason. In a fair fight, just you and the dog, maybe it would be the right thing to do. But they bite, and that's cheating.

Not that I want to eat my dog. We're just talking if things go from bad to worse, or bad to good and then to worse—you can't plan routes for bad. It goes it's own way, like a rebel. Seriously, I only plan to eat the dog if all the condiments are exhausted and no birds land on the windowsill.

Yeah, I got a plan, no shame in that. I sneak up on him while he's chewing his crotch and smash him over the head with a lamp. Not the good lamp. Or plan B. Throw the tennis ball right into the oven. You got to be fast, though, or he'll just bring it back to you and not give it back. Then that plan's history.

If you do somehow to make it until the landlord comes around, with or without eating the dog, I know some tricks to make everything work out okay. First off, you got to make him think you're dead so when he opens the door with his spare keys he'll be happy to see you're alive and not pissed because he hasn't gotten the rent. You have to make a dead person smell. I give this off naturally, the landlord says, so I don't know what to tell you—find a website. I'm sure there's a website that tells you.

It always helps to turn the fridge over on to yourself. Not only to pretend you've been pinned and not just couldn't figure out the deadbolt mechanism. It helps keep you warm, too, or a good place to hide from the dog if he gets the upperhand.

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Everyone loves seeing movies in the theater, because the screen is so freakin' huge. Plus when you throw shit at the screen at home, usually you're the one who has to clean it up later, unless you're smart enough to throw something the dog's not too proud to eat off the floor, like steak. But regardless, Omar Bricks has always had one major problem with seeing movies in the theater, and it's not the rule about discharging firearms during the exciting parts or the mandatory frisking for fireworks. No, the real pain in my remarkably-tolerant ass is the way they keep the movie playing like fascists even when you've really got to piss but don't want to miss the best part of the movie, which filmmakers strategically place right at the optimal time for a piss break to ensure repeat business.

Normally I just end up pissing in a trash can in the back of the theater, where I can still see the screen, but that's not a perfect solution either. Sometimes the trash is really full and you get splashback like from a cheap Korean urinal, and other times some 90-year old woman chooses that moment to pop into the theater to check and see if this movie has that delightful Kevin Costner in it, only to grab a stroke-inducing eyeful of your man-monster. So this was clearly a national problem worthy of serious scientific inquiry.

That put me at a slight disadvantage, since the only thing I know about science is that you can't freeze gasoline. But God never slams a door without kicking out a window, and my lack of technical know-how has always been made up for with ingenuity, which is another word for balls. And that's about as good an explanation as any for how I came up with the Movie Theater Remote Control®.

Because when I started thinking about it, not being able to pause a movie in the theater was only one of a number of problems with our antiquated movie-projecting systems. You also couldn't rewind to see cool parts of movies again, or fast-forward through the lame parts to get to something good. And the lack of a volume control was a ridiculous oversight. Only an idiot would try to sell you a TV without a volume knob, but we've been buying that same bullshit from the theaters for years. It was time to wise up and kick the man in the pants.

Most of the tech for the MTRC® came from plans I found in a dumpster outside of NASA. Did you know NASA locks their dumpsters? True as shit. And did you know you can pick a dumpster lock with a Bic pen and a Zippo lighter? That's one to grow on, kids.

The early prototypes didn't work exactly as planned, in fact the first one ended up blacking out most of Flatbush during a screening of The Country Bears. Not that you heard anyone complaining. Version 2.0 was far more effective, only too much so, if such a thing is possible. The problem was that while I was fast-forwarding through one of the many lame parts of Hidalgo, the MTRC® was actually controlling all the projectors in the multiplex at once, so although at least half the people there were being saved from lame bullshit, the other half were missing the best part of Starsky & Hutch, or at least seeing it at twice its intended speed. That's when I learned that as cool as a car battery can be for ultimate juice, sometimes AAs get the job done more appropriately. Plus you don't have to design a special harness to sneak a couple of AA batteries into a movie theater under your jacket.

Version 3.0 was actually a step backward, but for some reason it ran the Icee machine in the lobby just fine, so I kept that one for future experimentation. Version 4.01 was the real winner, and came in a sweet lime-green finish as well. I was set.

And for a few months, I was in movie-going heaven. Even with the rewinding for cool parts, and pausing for a couple of piss breaks, most movies only ended up taking about 45 minutes, since you didn't have to sit through any of the trailers or bullshit "character development" parts of movies. Sure, there were always a couple of whiners in the audience who wanted to see Barbara Streisand crying in her soup, but those knobs were in the minority and they didn't know who to whine to anyway since it wasn't like I was advertising my role as the dude with the remote. But eventually, I have to admit I got a little cocky and people started to catch on since I was the guy yelling "Bo-ring!" whenever Michelle Pfeiffer came on the screen and suddenly the movie would zap forward to a ninja fight or whatever.

I guess word got out, since things really came to a head last year when I paused The Bourne Supremacy so I could take a leak and when I came back, those fuckers were looking at me like I just ate the baby Jesus with Vidalia onions. I swear, these pious motherfuckers don't piss? Am I watching a movie with the cast of Waterworld again? Well excuse me, you inconsiderate dicks, but not everyone here can recycle their whiz and drink it again. Some of us have to pay eight bucks for a Mr. Pibb that's at least three times the size of our own bladder, and some of us are too modest to piss it down the aisle like Southern royalty. Next thing you know they're going to tell me these egomaniacs have never intentionally thrown up in the sink of the men's room at a fast food restaurant to make room for seconds.

Even getting banned for life from that theater wasn't a huge deal, since disguises are half the fun of going to the movies anyway. But what really sunk my battleship was that after the word got out, everybody wanted me to make them a MTRC®. First my neighbor Mitch, then Red Bagel, and then Roland McShyster. I don't even know what that guy wanted with one; I don't think he's ever been in a movie theater in his life. I asked him if he wanted to go see Star Wars last week and he thought I was talking about a reality show cross between Star Search and The Running Man.

At first things were going great, and I was making some nice coin to dick around in my garage, which has always been a dream of mine. But before I knew it, everybody had a MTRC® (or Griswald Dreck's knock-off version, the JapZapper®) and going to the theater, even in a fun disguise, became a total nightmare. Nobody could agree on what were the cool or lame parts of movies, and with 300 people in the theater there were so many piss breaks that watching a movie was like trying to play Quake on a Commodore 64.

Hence the sad but valuable lesson I've lived and learned to pass on to you, commune flock: If you ever find yourself in a position of absolute power, don't fuck it up by assuming that everybody's got good taste in movies. Bricks out.

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