Red Bagel: You the Man of the Year

n a tearful ceremony held in his apartment, Red Bagel accepted his fourth consecutive "You the Man of the Year" Award for all of his efforts in whatever it is that he does.

"It's a great honor, and a welcome surprise that I receive this award," said Bagel, in a speech possibly plagiarized from one of this three previous speeches. "As the creator of the Yitmotty, I understand what it truly means to everyone, especially me. And that makes it mean all the more to receive this for the fourth time."

The YTMOTY (or "Yitmotty," as has never caught on with anyone but Bagel) ceremony doubled as a going-away party for departing Editor Bagel, who goes on to do whatever a sick person with delusions of grandeur does on his sabbatical, taking possible mummy Sampson L. Hartwig with him.

Despite having done little for the advancement of anything except paranoia during 2002, Red Bagel was unanimously chosen by a distinct panel consisting of Bagel himself, to no one's surprise. In addition to publishing the commune and acting as its editor, Bagel spends too much time in bars and court, frequently drunk in both. 2002 was Bagel's biggest yet, as he introduced a semi-monthly column where he proposed such ludicrous conspiracy theories as puppets being reincarnated dead people and a character from the movie Tron kidnapping his personnel.

As a new part of the ceremony this year, commune Editor Red Bagel had everyone from the staff give a short speech explaining why they voted for their choice for Man of the Year, i.e. Bagel himself. "Because if I don't you'll fire me" was disallowed as being a part of any speech, as this reporter found out during his presentation.

Highlights of the ceremony included Lil Duncan's pregnancy test results (sparking a relieved sigh from the entire room), Rok Finger's diatribe against wheat pennies, Boner Cunningham's lively re-enactment of the famous Flashdance sequence, and Omar Bricks' surprise fireworks display that sent three to the hospital, though at least one was most likely faking just to get out of the party early.

After the procession of obligatory praise, and after he himself had downed two bottles of Makers' Mark, Red Bagel took the stage for his long-awaited speech, which considering he's had three chances now to do it should have been better.

"Some men are followers and some men are leaders," said Bagel, earning a laugh when the slurred "followers" came out sounding like "flowers." "It's clear by now that I am the leader. I have tried to do something new and different with the commune, and new and different is what I've done." This reporter stressed the word "good" was appropriately absent from that description and was forced to finish listening to the speech bound and gagged.

"This year was a banner year for the commune. We've kept the quality of the commune news and reporting consistent from January to December," continued Bagel, once again distinctly avoiding the word "good." "From its humble beginnings the commune has crawled out of the mud with you parasites on its back, and we're headed to the top. We're no longer publishing on the back of previously-published pamphlets; that was getting a little expensive anyway. The internet has allowed us to move unreigned, unchecked, and I'm announcing here and now that 2004 will be the best year for the commune yet."

Bagel then conveniently passed out and broke his Hawaiian tiki coffee table, leaving us to wonder whether he meant to suggest the correct year of 2003 or if we're suffering through another lame year like 2002 until 2004 rolls around.

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Dear commune:

I have a bone to pick with you, commune. It's about time someone stood up and stated the obvious: the commune's mascot, Poopey Chalupa, is a shameful and offensive stereotype that cheapens, exploits and degrades the fine heritage of the people of Mexico. And if you're reading this out loud, you'd best be sure to pronounce that "Mey-heeco" to avoid further damage to these fine people.

Shame on you, commune: this kind of schoolyard tomfoolery is beneath you and frankly I expected more from the publication that has brought us the wit and wisdom of Tom Turkel's "Home Town" for more than 20 years. You may consider this formal notice of the cancellation of my subscription.

Beth Romerlaud
Pierce Mountain, Delaware


Dear Beth:

The commune shares your outrage at the exploitation of helpless minorities, unless they're on our payroll. No one here will soon forget the intolerance and hatred bred by shows like Taxi and Perfect Strangers in years past, and we have no interest in breeding further misconceptions, or rabbits. However, we regret to inform you that Poopey Chalupa does not work here; in actuality he is the mascot for El Común, the newsletter of the annual Mexico City street bazaar. Have you seen our mascot, lady? We'd kill to get that cute little sombrero-wearing rascal.

Furthermore, Tom Turkel's "Home Town" has never appeared on the commune, and it never will; not so long as he keeps putting on airs like he's better than everyone and has a special need for medical and dental coverage.

Lastly: though we don't sell subscriptions to the commune, we'd be happy to cancel yours and send a bill immediately. Thanks for your letter, and we'll be sending a box of rabbits to help ease your liberal guilt. Feel free to keep them as pets or eat them or whatever bizarre kinds of shit you people do.

the commune

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Dear commune:

Yeah, I've got a question for you. If all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream, then why the hell won't my Chevy start? Normally when I have a dream it's something like I've got a chicken head where my penis is supposed to be or my mother-in-law is trying to give my dog an enema. Never anything about a blown head gasket or scored pistons. What gives?

John John Fridley
Elmwood, Texas


Dear John John:

Like most teenage English majors, it appears that you've confused poetry with reality. If life were truly a dream within a dream, your letter would have been from the commune's ex-girlfriend, confessing that she really did steal the commune's CDs and the commune's Notre Dame sweatshirt. There is an upside, however: that bird that's been following you around isn't really a nagging reminder of your lost love, it just wants some of the beef jerky in your pocket.

the commune

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Dear commune:

I'm dick and tired of hearing the stereotype that all men are obsessed with sex and that they can't help but think about tit every ten seconds. Sure, some guys may be certified hooter hounds, but that doesn't mean the chest of us are just helpless dogs, salivating at the taut of glimpsing naked female flesh. It's unfair to hump us in with that fist group, when we as a sex have cum so far. I'm a head-blooded American male, boner of a healthy sex drive, but I ride myself on being capable of suck things as intelligent thought and higher brainal function, and I think moist men are, ass well.

I thrust that we're in agreement on this topless.

Kent Boobner
Knobjob, New York


Dear Kent:

You have a good point there, Kent. Good fuck with your crusade, and spank you for riding.

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune news would like to issue a warm greeting to our new scab tiny-type writers, even though it feels kind of weird to issue a warm greeting to yourself. But what the hell, they pay better than Stride Rite.

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As long as there have been statements of truth, there have been lies. In fact, lies have been around a bit longer, since in early days there wasn't much of a good reason to tell the truth about anything at all, because it was near the beginning of time and nobody knew anything anyway. It took decades for normalcy to be established and for those original lies to come back and bite the liars on their early asses, creating a motivation not for honesty, but rather more clever lies that were less likely to boomerang back and fuck shit up later on.

After a few generations, someone told the truth, mostly on accident, and an entirely new category for these mysterious "not lies" had to be created. These were deemed highly unusual and somewhat unsettling, and no one was entirely sure what these statements of non-falsity might be good for. In the end, it turned out, the answer was not much.

Early caveman lies were charmingly quaint and simple, with the original lie, "It wasn't me!" still a popular favorite today. After a few hundred years the second lie, "It was him!" was invented, contributing greatly to the growing complexity of social interactions. The third lie, "No, you look great," marked the dawning of modern male-female relations, which have progressed little in the intervening 160 million years.

Lies grew more complex in Egyptian times, with the great lie of that age being the Pharaoh's "Seriously, we're building this pyramid for everybody to use!" But the modern lie didn't reach full maturity until the time of the Roman Empire, when the Romans went over 200 years without telling anyone the truth, ever. This became a running joke in Rome, since if you bought a ticket to the Coliseum, the time listed on the ticket only really told you the hour the event was guaranteed not to start on. Unlike modern Westerners, the Romans weren't angry at all about being lied to, since to a man they found it uniformly hilarious. Most conversations between Romans were merely contests to see who could tell the biggest lie, and because of this the greatest insult you could pay to a Roman was to compliment him. This cultural misunderstanding led to all but one of the wars Rome was involved in during the nation's reign, the other one being caused by a stray dog with incredible gas.

Some consider Jesus' "I'll be right back!" claim of rapturous return to be the original lie, but that's just foolish religious bias speaking. Men had been pulling each other's legs for millions of years before Jesus laid that turd.

Perhaps the funniest lie ever told in history was the pilgrim's famous "We come in peace!" canard handed to the Indians upon de-boating at Plymouth Rock. The Indians bought this stinker hook, line and sinker, thanks to an unfortunate history of total honesty in Native American communication, since most tribes even lacked the concept of what a lie was, except for the Ocaca ("Shitbird") tribe, who were dirty fucking cheats so crooked their arrows didn't even fly straight.

Fittingly, America was founded on not only the "Let's live together!" bullshit dealt to the Indians, but also the "We're just checking this place out for you guys" whopper that was flung back England's way. This cock-and-bull double-whammy set the precedent for a nation so enamored with tall tales we ended up exporting them to the entire world on flimsy little plastic discs guaranteed to last "forever."

America's favorite lie to date has probably been the fate of JFK; since 40 years have gone by without the truth ever being revealed that there never WAS a president named John F. Kennedy, even though it only took some grainy footage of some random parade unwisely detouring through Compton to convince an entire nation otherwise.

New Coke was a lie. It was actually exactly the same as Old Coke, which makes the soft drink's spectacular failure all the more hilarious. Admittedly, though, a large portion of the drink's failure can be attributed to an early can-printing mishap that led to the first million cans of the soda being shipped with the name "New Cock."

This flub did thrill the small bands of genetic dropped balls known as soda collectors, who rushed to buy up all the cases of the misprinted cola they could get their hands on. The flubbed pop was a giant flop with the general public though, since few people in the early 80's were ready to publicly declare their aching desire to wrap their lips around some New Cock. The soda did sell surprisingly well in Texas, however.

Advertising has overshadowed most of the big public lies of the last century, since not even President Clinton's "It wasn't me!" or President Bush's "Of course they got bombs, they're A-rabs" can really compete with the constant daily inundation of claims that beer will make you strong and that the same old shit is new and improved. In fact, dishonesty became so pervasive in advertising that the only completely honest ad on record, Pan-Am's ill-fated "We Really Hope You Fly With Us, Even Though the Airlines are All Basically the Same, or Else We'll be Up Shit Creek" campaign, led to the prompt bankrupting of the airline within fourteen days.

Other great lies you may have missed? Here's the rundown on what you need to know, courtesy of your Uncle Griswald: Unless you're Jimi Hendrix, nobody in the world likes to listen to you play guitar. Sorry. Underwear? Not really necessary, and the prime reason you haven't been laid in three years. Tomatoes aren't really a fruit, and Castor Oil isn't really good for you. Everybody else was pretending to like Reggae. Masturbation does cause cancer, but only if you keep it a secret. And most importantly of all, reading the commune really does improve both your chances of winning the lotto and being trampled by bison. Do with that knowledge what you will.

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