Middle East Peace Treaty: Everybody Out

treaty was signed Friday declaring peace between Israel and its surrounding Arab nations, something few thought they would see in their lifetime. And this time there is high expectations the treaty will hold, meaning peace for the 349 people still residing in the Middle East following a massive exodus of hardline and extremists Arabs and Israelites.

“I am glad we have finally settled this long, brutal time of unrest,� Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah told five men in a barren stadium as echoes filled all around him. “I look forward to a long time of peace and prosperity, and hopefully repopulating our lands.�

“We have much to be thankful for,� said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, to a small group of friends he had invited over for Pictionary. “Our perseverance and tolerance have paid off, and finally we are at peace with our neighbors. We may still have disagreements, but they will be settled with smiles and handshakes rather than bullets and fire.�

It was Prince Abdullah who first proposed the necessary solution for peace: Ousting of hardliners, extremists, radicals, and others who would not help the peace process, or even hinder it. During week-long discussions with Prime Minister Sharon and representatives of other Arab nations, the decision was reached that someone had to go if there was to be peace. So they did.

With the help of U.S. and U.N. troops, in busload after busload, one plane after another, extremists on both sides were rounded up and deported from each country. Some voluntarily admitted their stance against the process of peace or making concessions to opposing countries, others were rooted out by previous statements or funny looks given when told of the plan for peace. Whether taken by force or collusion, any oppositions of peace were removed so as to allow a smooth and uncontested transition to the Middle East’s new peace.

All critics or challengers of the peace process have a new home in Antarctica, where they will found a new country, christened by President Bush as Boomtown. The president liked the name as he coined it, but admitted, “If the new residents of Boomtown can stop fighting for five seconds to agree on a new name, by all means, call it something else.�

The huge population shift has already been a boon to the residents of the Middle East, who find themselves among the richest nations in the non-Western world now with their remaining wealth divided up among the remaining 349 residents.

“Allah be praised,� said passive Saudi Koran teacher Aburah Kahim. “I knew my wisdom and goodness would be rewarded. Should my new Jewish neighbors wish to make the journey to my house, we will have a full pork-free dinner at my table.�

Things are not looking so well for the new residents of Boomtown, who find themselves the poorest nation on earth overnight. And though the country has been in existence for only 72 hours, their murder rate far surpasses their predicted Gross National Product already. Their first planned meeting of Parliament was postponed Saturday after six suicide bombers of various ethnic origin destroyed the ice cave where the meeting was to be held.

“I miss the West Bank,� one Palestinian youth was heard to say before a steady stream of rocks pounded him from behind.

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I don't know why everybody expects me to know everything around here. "Omar, what's your car doing parked in my office?" "Omar, who the fuck hired Menudo to tile the break room?" "Omar, what ever happened to that Japanese woman you had living in your house?" What am I, Google? Get your lazy ass over to the library and look it up yourself, Curious George. AskOmar.com don't run for free and when I charge, I charge in pain.

I have to admit though; the "Japanese woman" question did get me thinking. I seem to remember something like that, some kind of foreign squatter in the Bricks Manor a little while back. At first I thought I must be remembering some lame sitcom, but according to resident prick Orson Welch, The Jap of Luxury went off the air years ago.

I definitely remember the house smelling like soy sauce a lot last year, and a quick peek into the compost heap outside shows strong evidence that there was a lot of chop-sticking going on around here during the same time period. So it certainly looks like this place was all Japped up for a good couple months last year. Weird.

I decided to hit the Internet for a little research, which mostly turned up strange cartoon pornography that's likely going to screw up my Saturday mornings for the next few years. But the most useful info came from the commune itself (no shit, we're on the Internet now) in the form of my own Polio columns from last fall. That was really a trip; I was wondering how in the hell people got to our site. Turns out all you have to do is search for "Japanese cat-piss cornhole" and you're there.

So now with that confusion out of the way, I'm faced with a question: What in the hell happened to my Asian live-in cohort? Jesus, you turn around for nine months and these people disappear on you, it's insane.

The last thing I remember, we were teamed up in this rickshaw polo tournament I had organized for charity. Osaka had been building up some serious skills carting me around town during those carless days, and I was getting pretty sharp at not eating shit out the back on sharp turns, so I figured we should put those skills to use for a good cause. There was some static about a school for training immigrants to pull Omar Bricks around town like a dogsled team not being a real charity, but those whiners were weeded out pretty fast and most of them had some pretty sad sack rickshaw-pullers anyway, to say the least. Mostly scrawny neighborhood kids or hookers trying to get off the street, Osaka and I would have poloed circles around them without either of us breaking a sweat.

In retrospect I wouldn't have minded if those guys stayed on, because the poloers who did stick around were a pretty rough bunch who favored a brand of full-contact rickshaw polo that wasn't for the faint of heart. I really felt sorry for anyone who parked their car on Brown Street that day, that's all you need to know.

In the end nobody there could match the skills Osaka and I brought to the arena, but they didn't need to since we flipped the 'shaw while popping a wheelie on the victory lap after I'd scored our first goal. Needless to say the rickshaw was destroyed, which Osaka probably wasn't too thrilled about since she'd paid for it and I'd talked her into getting one of the nice ones, really the Mercedes-Benz of rickshaws, it had a mini-fridge and a doorbell and everything. After the crash there was rickshaw shit all over the street, a stray dog even made off with the portable DVD player. It was a sad scene, especially for me, because I was right in the middle of Rollerball when it happened. I still don't know how that movie ends.

Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing Osaka after the crash, she may have given up on America or been kidnapped by the Triads for all I know. Hell, she could still be at the bottom of that pile of rickshaw rubble, but I bet they've cleaned that up by now. I probably could have stuck around and found out for sure, but the cops were on their way and we only had about ten minutes to make the half-off beers at Runyon's, so nobody was exactly volunteering to hang around for casualty detail.

It's probably all worked out for the best, unless she died. In that case, Osaka, or whatever your real name was, I'll never forget you. Again. After this time, never again. So I'll only forget you once. Probably, can't promise anything. But if you are still around and have learned to read English by now, Foghat's been sleeping on a pile of your stuff, so if you want it back you'll have to talk to him. Bricks out.

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Can you believe those cheap ass pants-handlers at the commune? I just found out they're paying us the same this year, despite the double-barreled workload increase that comes with the switch to the weekly schedule. That is the Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger of bullshit. If I'm going to be doing twice the work this year, I demand at least an increase in the number of surplus novelty calendars we get to take home every month. Like the saying goes, "Time is calendars," and you know I deserve to be compensated for mine.

And then to add insoles to injury, I accidentally emailed that last paragraph to Randy "Machoman" Savage yesterday, while writing one my weekly emails about how he sold out when he stopped doing Shakespeare and joined the WWF (sue me, panda-fuckers). Goddamned Windows is all I can say about that. If you're gonna put the "send email" button right next to the "kill" button on Minesweeper, shit like this is just going to keep on happening to good people. And I was pissed about that times two, since not only did I send Machoman the beginning of my new column, which was likely going to sell for hundreds on eBay within the hour, that also blew a golden opportunity to break my Minesweeper record for blowing that little guy's ass up in under a second.

Weirdest thing of all, though, was that Machoman actually wrote me back. For the first time as far as I can tell, unless his previous messages got smurfed by my spam filter. Whatever happened, this one got to me and really put my colon in a twist. That meat mountain actually had the balls to suggest I've got an easy job, then he pressed his luck all the way by asking what in the hell I do the rest of the time if I've only got one column to write a week. What do I do? Shit man, what don't I do?

Who do you think writes Quentin Tarantino all those letters about how he never puts backwards-talking midgets in his movies any more? That's right, Roland McShyster. But who do you think mails that shit? Bludney Pludd, usually. Stay with me here. Who do you think covers the stairwell in grease-coated marbles before all this happens? Omar "Don't Tell Me You Didn't Know It Was Greased Marble Day" Bricks, that's who. Didn't think about that when you were so busy laughing at Bludney Pludd's hilariously broken body, did you? Somebody's got to put in the work behind the scenes to make this world go around, man.

Damn, that Machoman chaps my ass. Leave it to an ex-Shakespearean actor to underestimate how much this extra column cuts into my prank-calling time. I had to abandon an elaborate plan to sell Rok Finger the deed to a Nigerian gold mine just to give me the time to procrastinate about writing this column. And it just doesn't sit right with me, the idea of Finger spending his commune paycheck on bread and electricity instead of the commune in-office scam of the week, or Griswald Dreck's 1-900 answer line. Fucking Machoman.

It's time Omar Bricks proved to the world that he earns his paycheck, times two. I don't care if it takes a fake beard, fake tits, or imitation Alaskan king crab, Omar Bricks is going to find a way to get paid like he was two people, while maintaining the workload of a small child. This victory shall be my crowning achievement, making up the bulk of the text in my eventual obituary, and helping to pay for the ski jump I've been wanting to put in my back yard. Even better, the effort will likely kill the rest of the down time until they finish building my neighbor's new house and I can get all up in that biatch. Bricks out.

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