|  | 
November 28, 2005 |
African-American and Caucasian shoppers gathered at a local Best Buy to present negative media images, while our photographer did a little trainspotting before the shoot. he nation's African-American community had to bear another injustice over the weekend as it was revealed the sales on their own personal super-saving shopping event, "Black Friday," were moderate at best. Undoubtedly, the responsibility for the lower-than-projected sales will fall squarely on the shoulders of the black community.
"Sales were not as high as initially expected," announced economical tool and white person spokesperson Neil Van Hurst of Columbia University's School of Business. "This is owed mostly to continuing downward spending trends in recent holiday seasons." And its all the fault of black people, Van Hurst all but said.
"Black Friday," as it was named to instigate a race war, is the day-after-Thanksgiving sales event where prices at cheap retail ou...
he nation's African-American community had to bear another injustice over the weekend as it was revealed the sales on their own personal super-saving shopping event, "Black Friday," were moderate at best. Undoubtedly, the responsibility for the lower-than-projected sales will fall squarely on the shoulders of the black community. "Sales were not as high as initially expected," announced economical tool and white person spokesperson Neil Van Hurst of Columbia University's School of Business. "This is owed mostly to continuing downward spending trends in recent holiday seasons." And its all the fault of black people, Van Hurst all but said. "Black Friday," as it was named to instigate a race war, is the day-after-Thanksgiving sales event where prices at cheap retail outlets like Wal-Mart and K-Mart are dropped dramatically, inspiring fistfights among crowds of unruly shoppers, frequently African-American, according to news footage aired afterward. The sales are held extremely early in the morning before the sun comes up, when black people are found to be scarier to whites. Total sales figures for the racially insensitive second busiest shopping day of the year, after White Christmas Eve, were estimated at $8 billion, down .9% from last year's sales and considered a disappointment by white moneymen who hoped to shake just a few more million dollars out of the pockets of black Americans. Only Wal-Mart, a staple of the white cornbread community, reported sales that exceeded initial projections, sending the subtle damaging message that white people as a community are pulling their weight in our consumer-based society, while black people have failed to do their part to boost sales for white-owned corporations. Overshadowing the mostly apathetic sales were several videotaped incidents of people in crowds, usually black or partially black populations, vandalizing stores, pushing, shoving, and being rude, and generally acting like dicks. Conspiracy theorists and other sane-thinking individuals have even proposed the priceless videotaped propaganda is the real reason "Black Friday" sales are held at all. "Damn, G, that shit's the hardcore truth," said House, a friend of this reporter who supplies all the unfounded rumors for our circle of friends. "It's all part of the master plan—the same one they've been using on us for 400 years. We only just starting to get to the heart of the conspiracy. AIDS—they did that shit to us, for real. All the new money they started passing out, it takes our finger prints and keeps them imprinted in the special material. Then the C.S.I. motherfuckers in Washington have all our prints on record. Makes it easier to keep track of us. We through the looking glass, G. It's a mystery wrapped up in a riddle, all covered with enigma cheese in a taco shell." Providing a more optimistic outlook for the black community is African-american community leader and the greatest living man today, Reverend Shell Halbert. "We must strive to overcome the negativity perpetuated by the media and real life black people. We can act in our community, speaking directly to our leaders. We can act in Washington, to tell the politicians we vote and we are active and involved in our world. We can work with the media, to change the negative images bombarding us. And all of us, white and black alike, can calm the hell down when you're in an angry sale crowd. If you want a $29 digital camera, for God's sake, wait patiently for it, don't smack the woman in front of you in the head like a damn fool." the commune news celebrated Black Friday around here by slashing all facts in our news by 30% or more—get your news quick, before it needs to be verified! Shabozz Wertham is a proactive newsman, which is good that he told us that, since we otherwise would have thought he was just some troublemaker picking at the scabs of sensitive race issues.
 |  Fans Mourn First 30 Years of Puckett's Life Stocks Plunge- Wait, No, Stocks- Shit- Stocks Soar, Hold On- Stocks- Fuck
HD-DVDs could piss off DVD owners as soon as next year
 Eminem, Ex-Wife Reunite to Work on New Material |
Appeals Court Rules Hilton Legitimately Too Pretty to Survive Prison Climatologists Cross Legs Uncomfortably at Mention of Bangkok Conference Merck: “Crazy-Ass Brazil Giving AIDS Drugs to People With No Money” Poison Probe Reveals 90% of Packaged Foods Actually Dog Food |
|  |
 | 
 February 17, 2003
The Mystery of Cell Phone BillsModern mysteries come in all shapes and sizes, from the five-toed horny gorilla to the location of the island where they breed reality show contestants. But some of the most vexing mysteries of all come in the blandest of blandishments. Sometimes they slip under our radar in plastic-windowed envelopes, without any kind of Unsolved Mysteries theme music alerting us to their mysterious presence.
The only thing harder to read than an epileptic doing sign language or Spanish scribbled on a men's room wall is the modern cell phone bill. We live in a society where experts can catch a killer based on the velocity at which the blood hit the beanie baby display case, but there doesn't seem to be a person on the planet who can tell you what the fruity hell is going on with your phone bill. We have scholars who can read hieroglyphics, cave drawings and the handwriting in hip-hop album liner notes, but even they throw up their hands in disgust when you ask them what a Cross-Promotional Technolocality fee is or why you're being charged for Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Removal. And this isn't only because you called them up at home in the middle of the night from a bar and they couldn't hear your question over the Phil Collins blaring in the background. They just don't know.
However, all that is unknown may not be unknowable. It may just be that no one has ever had the balls to rip the phony rubber Richard Nixon mask off the truth. And believe you me, there...
º Last Column: Six Degrees of Griswald Dreck º more columns
Modern mysteries come in all shapes and sizes, from the five-toed horny gorilla to the location of the island where they breed reality show contestants. But some of the most vexing mysteries of all come in the blandest of blandishments. Sometimes they slip under our radar in plastic-windowed envelopes, without any kind of Unsolved Mysteries theme music alerting us to their mysterious presence.
The only thing harder to read than an epileptic doing sign language or Spanish scribbled on a men's room wall is the modern cell phone bill. We live in a society where experts can catch a killer based on the velocity at which the blood hit the beanie baby display case, but there doesn't seem to be a person on the planet who can tell you what the fruity hell is going on with your phone bill. We have scholars who can read hieroglyphics, cave drawings and the handwriting in hip-hop album liner notes, but even they throw up their hands in disgust when you ask them what a Cross-Promotional Technolocality fee is or why you're being charged for Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Removal. And this isn't only because you called them up at home in the middle of the night from a bar and they couldn't hear your question over the Phil Collins blaring in the background. They just don't know.
However, all that is unknown may not be unknowable. It may just be that no one has ever had the balls to rip the phony rubber Richard Nixon mask off the truth. And believe you me, there is truth behind the cowardly jargon that clogs your phone bill like Cher's decapitated head stuck in a toilet. Icky truth.
Phone bill jargon is all about telecommunications companies needing to give you a "deal" to get your business, but being genetically incapable of actually giving you a deal. If they actually managed to give you a bargain, their fat-cat golfing buddies would never let them hear the end of it, and might actually call into question whether they're really white or actually a member of some deceptively near-white-looking minority group. That, and they're greedy as fuck. So you can rule out not being bent over the barrel by the phone companies, that's just a fact of life.
However, everybody likes to feel like they're getting a bargain, so the phone companies developed a clever ploy to lower their rates while actually raising their rates. They gradually shifted more and more of their expenses into itemized fees and taxes that aren't included in your standard rate. So now your cell phone plan is only $40 a month instead of $60, but they're charging you $22 in made-up fees and official-sounding taxes on the back end of the bill. Washington capitulated because they liked the sound of the word and wanted to put "capitulating" on their résumés.
So now you open your cell phone bill and it's like you let a bunch of greedy leprechauns loose who are running around and grabbing whatever they can get their dirty little mitts on. There's one called the Federal Programs Cost Recovery Fee. This is to reimburse the phone companies for all the money they spent lobbying to get all of these fees and taxes okayed by the bureaucrats. Another is called the Universal Connectivity Fee, which is universal because everyone has to pay it, and it covers the cost of the phone company making sure everything is plugged in.
Telephone Number Pooling fees cover the cost of phone company employees picking out phone numbers that spell embarrassing words on the keypad when they're supposed to be working. Wireless Number Portability is a fee to offset the money phone companies are losing to cell phones, while the Audible Proximity fee is to offset the money cell phones are losing to people being in the same room and talking.
Enhanced 911 is a feature that plays a little animation of a guy getting carjacked next to a funny cartoon policeman sleeping in his cruiser with little Z's coming out of his head while you're waiting for 911 to connect you with a dispatcher. The Relay Service and Communication Devices Fund covers the cost of connecting calls to land-based phones, while the Telecommunications Relay Service Surcharge connects you to phones shaped like footballs and other novelty items.
The Universal Service Fund Surcharge is a fee paid to Universal Studios to recoup their losses from people who are talking on their cell phones so much they're not scared by the big jumping shark on the tram ride. The Federal Exercise Tax is meant to recoup the strain on the health care system caused by you talking on your cell phone instead of exercising.
The so-called State Regulatory Fee is also known at the Don Knotts Surcharge, which guarantees that you will never, ever, be telephoned by Don Knotts at any time. The FCC Access Charge covers lawsuits against the phone company brought by people who've had movies, meals, sporting events, urinations, wedding vows and evening commutes ruined by some idiot yakking on his cell phone.
Last but certainly not least, the Trans-Continental Deactivation fee is the charge for them to pull their dick out of your ass after they're done fucking you.
Likewise, you're taxed by the states, counties, cities, and special taxing districts you're calling to and from, and by Burt Shyman from Oak Grove, CT, who invented the dropped call. And you're also paying to not have your phone number listed in Serial Killer Magazine, and for the expenses incurred by the phone company while they're selling your phone number to every disabled reindeer charity, opinion survey group and credit card company in the nation.
The deeper you probe into this mystery, the murkier it becomes, kind of like Ronald Reagan's brain. Stare too long and you may come away cross-eyed, or sterile. One thing is clear, however: If it's not cell phone radiation giving us these brain tumors, it's the bills. º Last Column: Six Degrees of Griswald Dreckº more columns
| 
|  May 26, 2003
Bricks on the Fourth of JulyI definitely need to hire out as a Fourth of July consultant. If you think you don't need a Fourth of July consultant, you've never experienced a Bricks Fourth of July, end of story.
It's about a month away, I know, but when you want to make it a memorable good time, you've got to plan well in advance. It's just not smart to put a houseful of fireworks and a truckload of Miller Genuine Draft together without more than a little planning. Now usually I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy, even if the ass of the pants rips out and you get kicked out of the kid's birthday party, but hey, it's not like I knew the kid anyway—nothing ventured, nothing gained; but when it comes to Fourth of July, Omar Bricks turns into a rocket scientist of event planning.
It's more than just explosions and drunken fight after drunken fight—shit, if I didn't have that on a daily basis I'd hang up my hat and go home already. The way I see it, Fourth of July is the world's celebration of pure, uncut freedom, and for me there's nothing better worth celebrating. Hanging out with buddies, sipping beers, and trading swimming pool-building tips is like a fart in freedom's face. Omar Bricks don't fart in anyone's face unless they personally asked for it or take out those little opera glasses in public, which is the same as the former in my book.
It takes more than a month just to save up enough money to rent the arena. Why go through the trouble and...
º Last Column: Polio at 50 º more columns
I definitely need to hire out as a Fourth of July consultant. If you think you don't need a Fourth of July consultant, you've never experienced a Bricks Fourth of July, end of story.
It's about a month away, I know, but when you want to make it a memorable good time, you've got to plan well in advance. It's just not smart to put a houseful of fireworks and a truckload of Miller Genuine Draft together without more than a little planning. Now usually I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of guy, even if the ass of the pants rips out and you get kicked out of the kid's birthday party, but hey, it's not like I knew the kid anyway—nothing ventured, nothing gained; but when it comes to Fourth of July, Omar Bricks turns into a rocket scientist of event planning.
It's more than just explosions and drunken fight after drunken fight—shit, if I didn't have that on a daily basis I'd hang up my hat and go home already. The way I see it, Fourth of July is the world's celebration of pure, uncut freedom, and for me there's nothing better worth celebrating. Hanging out with buddies, sipping beers, and trading swimming pool-building tips is like a fart in freedom's face. Omar Bricks don't fart in anyone's face unless they personally asked for it or take out those little opera glasses in public, which is the same as the former in my book.
It takes more than a month just to save up enough money to rent the arena. Why go through the trouble and expense of renting an arena? Well, you might as well ask what's the point in having a demolition derby—you can't hold it in your backyard, don't argue with that because I've tried. And the demolition derby is the big part of the Bricks Fourth of July gathering, and in the tight-money times I haven't been able to rent an arena I find an unguarded farmer field is a fantastic substitute. If you check with your friends who fake crop circles on the weekends they can probably tell you which places are frequently unsupervised and have the best tire traction.
Then you have to select the special car, I like to nickname it the "doom buggy". The best way, I've discovered, is to hold a little private lottery the night before—if you have one hundred ping pong balls, a giant hamster ball, and a tuxedo, have a little fun with it, it's like a party in itself. Then whatever number wins that's your car, since they'll all have numbers painted on them at the derby. I would recommend keeping it something only you know. Sure, you can let everybody in on the secret, but when most people find out the car's trunk is full of fireworks the volunteers to drive it dry up real fast.
No demolition derby is complete without a lot of beer, whether you're a spectator or a driver. Still, with luck you'll get flipped over by the car with the bulldozer prod welded on the front early and can get a seat right up front in time for the first explosion to hit the doom buggy. Man, that's Fourth of July. Our founding fathers would have been proud enough to piss themselves.
That's just my favorite part, of course. Some Bricks partygoers love shaving the heads of the derby losers. Others love the swimming pool full of Thunderbird, throwing flammable things on the bonfire, or the wrestle Lil Duncan contest. I'm not complaining, I love every part of it, even the swarming of S.W.A.T. team members to close the whole thing down gets me kind of misty-eyed. Like America, there's a little something for everyone. Bricks out. º Last Column: Polio at 50º more columns
|

|  |
Milestones1985: Ramrod Hurley flim-flams his way into the studio for the recording of We Are the World. Though his subversive lyrics go unsung, Hurley's taser-induced squeal can be heard two minutes into the track, a sound previously attributed to Cyndi Lauper.Now HiringConductor. General musical duties as expected: bossing around, waving arms, taking care of stick. Also needed to close gap in circuit between air conditioning unit and power main. Seeking an electric personality who loves going barefoot. Lack of close relatives or body hair a plus. Top 5 commune Features This Week| 1. | Boris is Gay | | 2. | Ms. Cleo's Special Sauce Recipe | | 3. | Big, German Jugs | | 4. | The Dangers of Breastfeeding Wildlife | | 5. | Apple: Computers for Commies? | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Winston C. Mars 12/12/2005 Nanotech SpecklesNanotech speckles form freckles electronic, bionic and fair
On my face and the space around as sound pleasing sound eeks from the sparkles there in my glittery hair
Bear hair, cloned re-zoned to my bald scalp like carpeting the Alps like beautiful Ralph my refurbished neighbor
Breath smells clickable by choice ride on my voice butterscotch and mint lavender with a hint of plum No gum! We have no more need for gum
Genetically hermetically engineered foods that exude such a pleasing aroma when eaten
Secreting aromatherapeutic oils which internally toil to freshen your insides
Nanotech speckles form freckles electronic, bionic and fair On my face and the space around as sound pleasing sound eeks from the sparkles there in my glittery hair Bear hair, cloned re-zoned to my bald scalp like carpeting the Alps like beautiful Ralph my refurbished neighbor Breath smells clickable by choice ride on my voice butterscotch and mint lavender with a hint of plum No gum! We have no more need for gum Genetically hermetically engineered foods that exude such a pleasing aroma when eaten Secreting aromatherapeutic oils which internally toil to freshen your insides and… What did you think? My shit doesn't stink! Teeth whitening hoagies are lovely bravely doing battle with my cigarette-stained enamel For I still cannot quit not with patches or implants addiction-quenching brain lacquers or crackers Quit Crackersor the help of brain hackers it's all of no use Thankfully this engineered tobacco is opium-enriched so reality is ditched and my worries all scurry to dark far-off places As three of my spare faces are buffed and embossed and tossed like a pizza as my complexion direction heads toward beautiful and I itch at the Velcro micro-sewn to my skull.   |