American Media Can Shut Up About Harry Potter Any Time Now

pokespeople for the American media-consuming culture spoke Friday, sending out the word that we hear what you're saying about this Harry Potter phenomenon and the American media can lay off for a little while already.

Besieged by reports about the success of the hugely popular Harry Potter books by British author J.K. Rowling, the American public has recently been assaulted with constant unwanted information about the film Harry Potter and the Soceror's Stone, released Nov. 16, 2001 to monstrous audiences, making it one of the most successful movies of 2001.

"What are we, five?" said spokesperson for the American public Ralph Mackie.

"Yeah, okay, just shut up about the shit already, okay?" pleaded spokesperson Nancy Shumaker. "I know all about the movie and I don't give a rat's ass. I don't have any kids or nothing, what do you want me to do? Am I really supposed to care?"

Spokesperson John Umala empathized. "I just was starting to enjoy not hearing about friggin' Survivor every five seconds, then I'm blasted at every angle by terrorism. Can't I get a minute of peace without being slammed with over-hype on anything?"

When questioned about any possible chance of shutting the fuck up about it, executives at Warner Bros. declined to comment. No guarantees to stop talking about it for at least a minute were made.

The corporate-generated media hype is possibly the largest since 1999, when nearly every facet of the American media refused to give Star Wars: The Phantom Menace a rest, will you?

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It is high time, as a teller of uncomfortable truths, I admitted one of the most obvious: the commune sucks. Or perhaps I should clarify that working at the commune sucks. The distinction might be thought important by some.

Shit you I do not, as Yoda might say. I admit my role in working at the commune has changed several times over the years, and more often than not I am a background character, like the old man who hung out at Cheers, but when brother Gay loomed his large, smarmy head in a few months ago and made a play to take over the publication, I put my nose to the grindstone and basically skinned the hell out of my nose. I worked extra hard, 24-7, 24 minutes of every hour, 7 hours a day, and this shit was not for me, sir. I am not made for a 7-hour work day. I don't know how everyone else here manages the five they do.

I will accept I perhaps have it better than some others, since I own the whole shebang, at least if I can keep Gay at bay, and I receive all the profits, should we ever make any. But it does not change the fact work completely sucks. The severe sucking nature of work cannot even be disputed at this point.

When I started the commune, or changed it from a quarterly Indian reservation newsletter to an alternative news publication, I only wanted to spread as much of the truth as I saw it as I could fit onto the back of pamphlets lifted from teen centers and free clinics. It was fun then, before I had a staff, a budget to be concerned with, and deadlines to heed. I sometimes wish I could go back to those days. Me and Sully, experimenting with mind-expanding medicinal herbs while I wrote my first column about how the 1969 moon landing was just an elaborate Tonight Show sketch aired out of context. Before I had snippy copy-editors knocking on my door to tell me I misspelled simple words and spilled bongwater on all my pages.

Gay Bagel, of course, challenged the commune to show profit as part of his new job as Ulterior Motive Manager, Class VII, and I thought the natural solution was to do what we do that wasn't showing a profit more often and at greater expense. So I took the commune to a weekly schedule and included extra pairs of irregular-fitting jeans as an pay incentive every week. All that has done, it seems, is give me more work to do. Gay doesn't know the first thing about publishing an alternative news website—have fun! The second thing being, of course, never malign Carol Burnett without ample photo evidence to back you up. But the first thing has been completely lost under Herr Bagel. Herr Bagel being Gay, instead of me, for once.

These days I'm in the office up to six days a week, instead of six times a month with the old commune management style. In a way, I suppose I feel I have to answer to Gay now when before I had no boss, I was able to just hang out in my office whenever I felt like it, pants or no pants. After all, if I don't show a major increase in profits, meaning make a profit of any type soon, he'll resume his legal battle to take over the commune again.

Bah. If I had half a brain in my head, which my staff is quick to assure me I do, I would let him have the damn commune. Dig Sully out of those boxes I packed him up in and light up the peace pipe once more. Go back to the old desktop publishing guerilla-style journalism I started with.

Still, I suppose things aren't all that bad. After all, if I can reach one reader, inform him of the deadly conspiracies and hidden injustices of this world, all my work has been worth it. And according to last month's website statistics, we finally successfully reached that one reader.

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Like any God-fearing man, Omar Bricks is careful to make a New Year's Resolution every year. Not that I'm all that religious, at least not since being banned from church for impersonating the Pope at a bake sale years ago. But the way I see it, it's best to stay on God's good side, in case he exists. So every year I resolve something.

One year it was to make a shitload of money. The next year it was to quit gambling and get out of debt, not to mention getting the mob off my back. Another year I resolved to be a Big Brother to some underprivileged kid, until I found out that was a different thing than living in a house with a bunch of hot bimbos and everything you do is on TV. One year I resolved to only eat things I like, but a few days later I accidentally ate at a White Castle when I was piss drunk, so that didn't last too long. Most of the resolutions don't turn out so well, to be perfectly honest, except for the year I resolved to quit smoking. I'd never smoked before, but I still went the whole year without starting up the habit. So I think that counts.

This year I've resolved to spend more time naked. This may seem similar to last year's resolution, which was to see Salma Hayek naked, but I figure it's different enough to qualify. After you die, they stuff you in some ridiculous monkey suit in a box for all of eternity; so really, you have to take advantage of your available naked time while you can. The way I look at it, I've already wasted too many of my prime naked years. Conservative parents, misguided high school teachers and small-minded local cops have kept this bod under wraps for far too long.

I realize this is a big resolution, bigger than most, so I've been making some dry runs at it these last few weeks that have been going pretty well. People are generally pretty cool about you being naked at the health club, though I did get some dirty looks on the treadmill. Most likely jealously, since most people can't run that fast when they're naked. It's a little trick I picked up while I was on vacation in Norway one year. I was taking a shower on the plane and the fuckers landed and cleared out all the luggage while I was in the bathroom. Granted, I was in there a while, but I'm not the one that designed those things so crazy, putting a toilet and trash can and all that shit in the shower. The least they could do would be to put a showerhead in there that's higher than nutsack level, it's not like that many midgets fly coach.

So I get out of the shower and all my bags with my clothes in them are gone, and there's just some cleaning lady on the plane who looks at me like she's never seen that much naked man before. As a matter of fact, I don't think the city of Oslo had ever seen that much naked man before, but I managed to sprint to a clothes store without too much incident and it was pretty cool to feel like I was in the movie Terminator with the Norwegian audio track on.

Other places are not so cool with you being naked, or at least they're able to make their disapproval heard in English. Toys 'R Us is downright fascist about not having any naked guys running around in their stores. I could understand them not wanting any naked little kids running around who don't know a Gamecube from a training toilet, but it's not like nudity is contagious. All they need is some cardboard sign of a naked giraffe saying you've got to be this tall to be naked in the store, problem solved.

Most restaurants are pretty weird about nudity, too. Maybe it's because they don't think you'll be able to pay if you don't have any obvious place to carry a wallet, I don't know. They might have been worried I was going to ass up the booth but if that's all it was I would have been more than happy to sit on a napkin or one of those toilet-seat horseshoes or something. Let that be a lesson, people, sometimes it pays just to ask.

To me, the weirdest nudity policy has got to be at the community swimming pool. It's like these people don't think the water is going to find a way to sneak around their bathing suits and touch all their junk anyway, they want to string me up for cutting out the middleman. I'm not sure why swimming and hypocrisy go hand in hand, but they do.

I think the success of my 2003 resolution is going to depend mainly on finding naked-friendly places and spending lots of time there. Thankfully the commune offices revoked their dress code long ago, after Ramrod Hurley sued over Lil Duncan not being able to wear things from the slutty end of her wardrobe. Which if you ask me is both ends and the middle, but that's not my business. Right now my business revolves squarely around finding some kind of fuzzy ass-friendly cover for this office chair, because this vinyl clings like a motherfucker.

Wish me luck, and warm weather. Bricks Out.

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