t’s almost the time of year to start pretending you’re Christmas shopping while you look for swanky new shit for yourself, and the commune is there for you with our first-ever annual Fall Gadget Guide. Join commune Tech Correspondent Mitch Kroeger as he guides you through the bewildering wilderness of the new and the shiny.

















Be sure to join us again next year when we’ll take a look at the iPod Video, the Petco Remote Control Dog Neuterer and the Nokia Earring Phone. Until then, stay tight.

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Once upon a time there was a happy couple who could not, you know, have a kid. They went to doctor after doctor until they found one who told them he could help her get pregnant, but neither the husband nor wife were happy with his suggestion and she slapped him curtly. A magical fairy appeared to them one night when they had downed a quart of Vermouth each and made them a promise.

"I can give you a son," the fairy said, "but he will be a small boy. Though smallish in stature, however, he will have the biggest heart you have ever seen."

The couple profusely thanked the fairy and gave her a generous gratuity. Sure enough, within a month the wife was pregnant.

When their son was born, months later, they were surprised as hell when the boy was no bigger than a Claritin pill. The father said something to the effect of, "Jesus, I know she said he'd be small, but I thought she meant Dudley Moore small, not Tom & Jerry small…"

The boy was very loving, but his parents neglected him. They were not cruel people, it was just so easy to forget about the boy no bigger than a Claritin pill. He slept in a matchbox, he drove a Matchbox, and trying to shop for him, well, forget it.

One day the fat evil landlord came to the old house and told the couple that they could not keep their son in the house, it defied some sort of anarchist zoning rule of the time and they would have to move or kick him out. It was unbelievable to the couple, who did not want to lose their son or their house, the house even more so.

Before they had a chance to make a decision, though, the boy no bigger than a Claritin pill jumped down the throat of the fat landlord with a toothpick in hand and began to wreak havoc on his gastro-intestinal track. The boy carved his way through the fat man's stomach, up though his lungs, and severed all the cords to his heart, though by that time the sheer pain of it all had killed the fat bastard.

Eventually the parents of the boy no bigger than a Claritin pill carved open the landlord's chest and retrieved their son, and by damn, sure enough, between his teensy hands he had the biggest heart any of them had ever seen. They were much appreciative, and more than a little terrified.

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Ramrod Hurley at the helm. The big news this week… well, everyone knows. It's the big fat picture we so conspicuously placed atop the index page. But buried in the major national headlines was one of the most important stories we could have asked for: Tom Cruise's long battle with a male porn star is over! The victor: Tom Cruise.

It's a shame that sometimes the media gets caught up in ridiculous international headlines like whether North Korea is aggressively seeking to build up nuclear arms or the state of weapons inspectors in Iraq, and they lose touch with the simple stories that really matter. Here a man, a filthy male porn star even, accuses Tom Cruise of being gay and doing nasty things with him, and that story makes all the major tabloid headlines. Everyone read it, if in the supermarket headlines at least, and yet who will read about Tom Cruise's exoneration? It's a damn shame. Shame on you, media.

And what does Tom Cruise get for all his humiliation? Well, $10 million. But the guy will probably never pay on the bill, he's a gay porn actor, for Christ's sake. How much money is in gay porn? Don't answer that as I never, ever want to know. So basically what we're left here with is Tom Cruise, flooded with accusations and holding a big, stiff bill in his hands. A bill never to be paid. No compensation for all this.

It's nothing new for Tom Cruise. He's been hounded with claims he's gay his entire career. Research Editor Griswald Dreck says much of it stems from Tom Cruise's first claim to fame, a sitcom where he played a gay rock star married to a "beard," with two adopted kids, a show called, Queer as Fuck; that, and the fact he's gay. Which leads me to a very important note, which is to never trust anything Griswald Dreck says. But you didn't hear it here.

So why is Tom Cruise followed by gay rumors? Nothing more than wishful gay-thinking, I would guess. A beautiful, charming Hollywood star with a light touch to his nature, like a modern-day big-teethed Cary Grant. Tom Cruise has more passion than growl, maybe, more sophistication than ruggedness, but does that mean he's gay? Rock Hudson had those same qualities, as did The Brady Bunch's Robert Reed. Now what do you say?

There are plenty of people who would want Tom Cruise to be gay, I'm sure. It's hard to blame them—who hasn't considered nuzzling naked in a large bearskin blanket next to a fire with Tom Cruise? Well, I haven't. I was just trying to trap you. But no matter what gay people want, it doesn't necessarily make it so.

But that alone can't be the answer, otherwise all those rumors about George Clooney I've been starting would have caught on. No, there's something else to Tom Cruise's mystique. And I think I have it.

You see, the gay porn star wasn't lying—he did sleep with Tom Cruise; or believes he did. The answer has been so obvious I'm surprised I'm the first to reveal it. There is a Tom Cruise doppelganger out there, living la vida loca on Tom Cruise's good name. And don't get me started on Ricky Martin.

Who is the Tom Cruise impersonator? Without further evidence, it would be potential libel to say. But if I were the finger-pointing type, I'd point squarely at Peter Facinelli from the show Fastlane. Just take a good long look at him: He looks just like Tom Cruise, he's too pretty to be straight, and I could definitely drop him into a naked bearskin blanket fireplace fantasy and not notice the difference. Someone's been nailing porn stars with Tom Cruise's face, and if I were in a Fox series with Bill Bellamy and Tiffani Amber-Thiessen I'd be so full of anger and resentment there'd be no limits to what I'd do.

º Last Column: Ushering in a New commune Era
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