arents' groups across the country are up in arms this week following the publication of "Hitler: Flower of Hate," Maxwell Haus' stunning new biography of the late Nazi leader, which according to the dust jacket exposes the former fuehrer's deep fondness for waltz music. Citing evidence in personal diaries and correspondence between the two historical madmen, Haus' book suggests that waltz music may also have been a personal inspiration for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, also mad.

This shockingly belated news has caused a rethinking of national attitudes toward the mostly-forgotten musical form of waltz and the senior citizens who claim to enjoy it. First developed in the Austrian alps in the 17th century as a form of social protest against the stuffy polonaises of the day, waltz was considered an exciting and dangerous music for almost four years until the Polka rocked Europe in 1834.

Concerned mobs throughout America have responded to the latest news with waltz record burnings all week long, in many cases raiding the record cabinets of their elderly and infirm parents to unearth the darkly influential albums before they can do further damage. Asked if her hysterical mob might be going too far, mob spokesperson and daughter of two Andrea Collins disagreed.

"Are you even listening, people?" gushed an exasperated Collins. "This is HITLER music! We've got to do this for the chil- the old! Do it for the olderly!"

Though evidence remains sketchy, sensationalistic media outlets have tied waltz music to the rash of shootings at seniors' dances which may have occurred across the country in recent months.

According to those same disreputable media outlets, a new strain of "hard core" waltz has been gaining in popularity among the nation's seniors in recent years, a trend that their grown children find troubling.

"This isn't your parents' waltz music," explained University of Pussy Lake musicologist Stans Frenton. "Or actually it is. I'm sorry, it's just a figure of speech that isn't terribly useful in this situation. Waltz music hasn't changed in 400 years; it's pretty much always been as offensive as it is right now."

Though the chances of waltz music spreading to our nation's youth have been estimated by experts to be "fuckin' remote, like Alaskan outback underground deaf hermit remote," concerned parents remain concerned about the effect this sedate, docile music may be having on their own elderly parents.

"First they start listening to waltz music," blathering idiot Josephine Matthews explained to the commune. "Then they don't want to take their pills any more, and they want to stay out all evening, slow dancing and sitting quietly in chairs."
Matthews shuddered at the thought, or possibly because it was cold.

"Well, at least our kids aren't listening to this waltz shit," sighed resigned parent Philip Dillinger of Oak Caverns, IL, poking around for something else to get upset about. "They don't look up to their grandparents at all, not much danger of there being a bad influence there. As a matter of fact, if I could convince my parents to start taking drugs and freak dancing, I'm pretty sure my kids would stop doing those things too. Hold on, I've got to make a call."

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First off, I wanted to apologize to our newly loyal readers about the comments form not working, I know some people have been trying to use it but something is messed up the code, so all that comes through is nonsense about Viagra and oatmeal cookies.

But more importantly: Orgasmic news, everyone! I’ve found Raoul Dunkin! I know, that phrase has never before in the world been uttered. I kid, Raoul, just a little old-school commune humor. But seriously, you could peel me off the ceiling when I got an anonymous tip on our commune reunition hotline (1-800-COM-MMIE) the other day saying that Raoul had been running a political news and commentary site called www.spankrag.com until it recently folded, and since then he’s been bagging groceries at a Pamida in Scottsdale. Before you could say "Spankwhat?" I was down at the library digging up a Scottsdale phonebook and within hours I had Dunkin himself on the line. After seventeen minutes of explaining who I was, Mr Dunkin’s memory was violently jogged. And better yet, he agreed to join forces with me at the commune redux! On the condition that I get the word out about the Spankrag saga. And so I’ll waste no time doing that, here in Raoul Dunkin’s own words:

"Although the website did fail, I disagree wholeheartedly with those who claim it was because of the name. Some insist that Spankrag.com was an inappropriate name for a cutting-edge political news site, but that’s only because they didn’t understand the name’s many clever layers of meaning. I chose the word "spank" because I wanted my site to spank the forces of ignorance and oppression with the big, meaty palm of information. And I chose the "rag" part to express my rage at the status quo and the complacency of everyday Americans in the face of having their rights stripped away one by one. To answer the obvious question, yes, I did originally want to name the site www.spankrage.com, but this was already taken by a pornography website."

Welcome back, Raoul! I have it on good authority Mr Dunkin will be providing us with cutting-edge news content for the commune in the exceedingly near future. Which is a good thing, because I had tried my hand at penning some news pieces myself to fill the gap and they were so terrible my neighbor’s dog broke into my bedroom and ate them. So I guess the world will never know about the disturbing goings-on down at the Shanesly Senior Center’s shuffleboard courts. Perhaps it’s all for the best, some news is so dark it serves no useful purpose other than to turn one’s soul away from the light.

In lighter news, I also found Roland McShyster! Sort of. I was buying some milk down at the Safeway when I realized there was a wet sheet of paper stuck to the carton. It wasn’t even glued on or anything, just stuck on because the milk carton was wet. All the milks had them. And as I squinted to make out the waterlogged type, I suddenly realized I was reading Mr. McShyster’s inimitable take on the art of modern cinema. Holy moley! (Seriously, spellcheck? You’ve never heard of moley?) I instantly bought three cartons of milk and raced home to upload Roland’s column to the website. After I got home I realized all three were the same, so now I have a shitload of milk for nothing, but it was still worth it to see the Safeway manager’s face when I casually name-dropped that I know the guy who’s been sticking movie reviews to their milk. You can imagine he was impressed. He was less thrilled that I didn’t know where Roland could be located, and my memory was too poor to provide an accurate sketch they could give to the store’s security guards, but I still think my stock has gone way up at the local Safeway.

If you have a tip about where more ex-commune staffers might be hiding, and for some reason have something against telephones (not that I blame you), I encourage you to let your fingers do the talking. Email me at Emil_Zender_remove the space, add the year Spain achieved independence times three, apologies if I don’t get back to you right away, sometimes I mix up that date in my mind, for like a month I thought it was 1847, I don’t know why I thought that, it was just weird, but anyway I couldn’t get into my gmail for a whole month until I realized that wasn’t the date at all… wait, isn’t that the date? Shit, now I’m confused again@gmail.com. Sorry for all the subterfuge but you have to be careful about Spam these days, Hormel will send entire cases of that nasty crap to anyone who isn’t careful with their info online.

This is really happening, folks! Get in on the ground floor so you can say you were here when the commune rose from the ashes like a crack fiend who had fallen asleep on the couch!

Zincerely,

Emil Zender

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Don't ask me why or how, but I keep dating guys named Evan. Without exception. It's actually kind of eerie and disconcerting the more I think about it, which is probably a good sign to quit. Thinking about it, that is. I'm not sure I can quit dating Evans, since I never actually set out to date guys named Evan in the first place.

I thought I had broken my streak once, back in 1997, when I started to date a guy named Charles. Then two months into the relationship I met his parents and discovered that his real name was Evan. His friends just called him Charles. For short? For long? I don't have any frickin' idea. His middle name wasn't even Charles, it was T-Fal. Don't get me started on that one.

Things went predictably downhill from there.

Things went sour between the previous Evan (Evan 7) and I after he wrote a column about Columbine called "Revenge of the Nerds," which I thought was unforgivably tacky. And he wasn't even writing for the commune! I'd thought that dating a fellow columnist would solve a lot of those normal career-relationship problems, like living with someone who doesn't understand your need to move in with a tribe of Kalahari Bushmen for a month to research a piece you're writing on teen pregnancy.

Turns out I was as wrong on that as I had been about my hot stock pick for that year: "Fat Camps" for bulking up underweight kids. Turns out you can't legally force-feed a child peanut butter through a tube, plus the chunks tend to clog up the tube. But that didn't much matter in the end, since my second-choice stock had been for a company developing man-sized Furby dolls as companions for the elderly, and that whole enterprise went south like a snowbird after some old bag in Kansas tried to feed hers soup and it blew the power grid for half of North America.

The first Evan I dated was probably the best, and in retrospect I should have quit while I was ahead. Sure, it was high school, but if I had known what was to come I would have gladly called it a romantic career at 16. Truthfully, I don't remember that much about Evan 1, but he smelled nice and that went a long way in high school. I think he was on the soccer team; either that or he just took shin safety very seriously.

It was a quick luge-run downhill from there, since Evan 2 pretty much spent all his time drinking Zima and crushing the empty Zima boxes against his forehead as a joke, which meshed surprisingly well with his job as an toll booth operator. People love a little levity when they're fishing through their seat cracks and underwear for 35 cents. And he did pull down a decent wage, mostly through selling Zimas to thirsty motorists. That eventually led to his downfall, of course, since one day he ran out of Zimas and had to leave his post to run to the Liquor Barn, which resulted in that story you heard on the news about those 200 people who got into the state of Illinois for free. Evan's boss was pretty pissed and wanted him to pay those lost tolls out of his own pocket, but never the math scholar, Evan jumped out the window instead and never looked back, not realizing he'd just left a lucrative Zima-distribution job over $70.

Evans 3 through 6 weren't worth remembering, or at least I don't remember them anyway, and numbers 9 and 10 left me for each other, so I won't be glorifying them with a more detailed mention. But on the bright side, I just started dating a new guy named Elvin, which I consider to at least be a step in the right direction. Unless he's really just another Evan with really sloppy handwriting, in which case I'm doubly screwed since I'm not sure if I'm supposed to meet him tonight at the boathouse or a bathhouse. I'm hoping it's the boathouse, since I'm tired of gay boyfriends always using up all my expensive makeup. Wish me luck.

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