Future Bob Fails to Prevent Senator's Death

onfound it all!

Anger and severe frustration were the mood Monday, October 31—Halloween—2005 when Future Bob checked his notes for things to do and realized he had forgotten to prevent the death of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.

Wellstone, a passionate former college professor and left-leaning Democratic Senator from Minnesota, was killed in October, 2002 in some sort of plane crash that also claimed the lives of members of his family and those aboard the plane. The details are long since lost to the ravages of time to 2005-dwelling Future Bob.

Prevention of the plane crash was on Future Bob's "to-do" list in the year 2005, though like many other events of that year have been unfortunately forgotten in time to change the future. Future Bob, as you may or may not know in 2002, has extensive bills and has to work two regular jobs in addition to his charitable contributions to the commune.

Had Wellstone's death been prevented, as per Future Bob's plans, the key Senate race in Minnesota could have been won by the Democrat and prevented Republican control of Congress and the White House in 2003, which of course led to several dark moments in recent American history such as the revoking of the 4^th Amendment and the passage of the "Sell the Homeless into Slavery Act of 2004."

With Wellstone's survival, a better period was possible for those crucial years of American history. Wellstone could have won re-election and unmasked his Senate opponent former St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman as the evil KGB mole Dmitri Raszokoff. As it stands now, history is unchanged and Coleman will not be revealed until the great Soviet Reunion of 2005.

Among other items on Future Bob's long list of regretfully-unchanged history: The Sept. 11^th attacks, a reign of terror by a trio of snipers, Will Ferrell leaving the cast of Saturday Night Live, the election of George W. "Nightmare" Bush, the release of Britney Spears' Oops… I Did it Again album, and several type-Os in his last commune article that weren't corrected.

To Future Bob's credit, he did prevent the noxious gas attack of December, 2001; the death of celebrity Tom Cruise at the hands of a gay lover; and the publication of Oprah Winfrey's Sex book.

Future Bob extends his deepest sympathies and sorrows to Wellstone's family, friends, and constituents, and hopes he can do more in the past (your future) to change history for the better. Please do not bog him down with e-mails questioning why he cannot change the past at any point in time from where he is now, it is a miserable experience trying to explain how the timeline and time travel works and it costs a lot of money to keep his futuristic past-broadcasting ham radio operating.

Once again, Future Bob is called upon to report to Long John Silver's for his first shift. Until next time, guard the country like the future depends on it—mine does. Future Bob signing off.

Appeals Court Rules Hilton Legitimately Too Pretty to Survive Prison

Climatologists Cross Legs Uncomfortably at Mention of Bangkok Conference

Merck: “Crazy-Ass Brazil Giving AIDS Drugs to People With No Money”

Poison Probe Reveals 90% of Packaged Foods Actually Dog Food

There's nothing more ugly than a fat man in banana-colored jams. That's just a fact of life. Sweet canary-colored Christ, is that a hard fact of life. This having been said, I admit there are more tactful ways to spread the word about this eternal truth than screaming it through a batch of megaphones you've got welded to the roof of your car like some kind of old-timey politician on a budget.

But may all the world's unfortunately-dressed fat men be my witness when I say I didn't set out this morning to malign the portly and ill-coutured via electronic amplification. I just wanted to test out the six-megaphone behemoth I had recently added to the roof of Bricksmobile III (formerly known as the Bagecudda) for purposes of thinking out-loud while in commute. Needless to say, that unfortunate fat bastard surprised me by appearing on the sidewalk in the middle of one of Omar Bricks' famous stream-of-consciousness clusterfuck rants, which led to me inadvertently screaming "Sweet Grandma Moses, did you see that fat fucker's pants?!?!" at the top of my lungs for the benefit of most of the greater metro area. If I'd had more time to think about what I was broadcasting at the decibel equivalent of two jet engines exploding in a stainless-steel men's room, I might have made it less obvious which fat fucker I was talking about, saving that jams-wearing butterball a fair measure of public embarrassment.

Of course, as should surprise nobody, Omar Bricks was man enough to admit his mistake, which I did by flipping a bitch across the median and heading back to apologize to the yellow-legged monstrosity whose dignity I had shitcanned with my ear-piercing insensitivity.

This time around we were heading in opposite directions, so I only had time to yell "Sorry, fatass!" before my window of opportunity was gone. Anything I'd said after that would have appeared to be directed at this gang of Latino guys hanging out on the corner, who didn't look like they had any kind of sense of humor about loud, public affronts to their manhood. Not to be prejudiced or anything, maybe they were a sensitive barbershop quartet or something, but those didn't look like barbershop tattoos to me.

In the split second that I saw that big yellow blimp's face on the way back, I couldn't quite interpret the look he was giving me, but it for sure wasn't the look that says "Don't worry about it dude, and thanks for having such an unbelievable assload of class." It seemed more like a mix of "Why me?" and "Fuck you," so clearly he'd misunderstood my message and thought I was just buttering him up as the set-up for a really devastating critique of his wide-load fashion sense.

Needless to say, Omar Bricks just couldn't let that injustice stand, so I threw the Bricksmobile in reverse and made my way back up the sidewalk to re-apologize. I'd barely megaphoned a heart-felt "I'm sorry for drawing attention to your big yellow ass, chunky" when the dude took off running like he'd never heard of social etiquette.

Most people aren't familiar with the proper technique for driving backwards up a city sidewalk; they think you should take it slow and steady to make sure you don't hit anything, careful to remember that turning left makes the car go right, etc. Actually, that's the most dangerous thing you can do, you're in real deep shit if you honestly think you're going to keep all that crap straight. It's much safer to put the hammer down and let the G-forces steer your car for you, the sidewalk and surrounding buildings will direct your car far better than your eyes ever could, trust me. But most people don't know this, so they overreact and dive out of the way when they see your car bearing down on them, accelerating into the low 60's with a mangled shopping cart bent across the trunk.

Jimmy Jams was apparently from the overreactor's school of backwards-sidewalk driving, because he hit the shoe-leather expressway like a big fat Lamborghini running on NASA fuel when he saw the Bricksmobile take out that kiosk of newspaper vending machines en route to apology. I knew I was going to have to think fast to set this whole thing right.

"Really, you're not that fat," I offered charitably over the megaphones. "Anybody would look bad in those pants."

But the rotund runaway kept on sprinting, even after I blurted out "My bad" on the car's horn in universally-understood motorist Morse code. Some people just can't be reached, especially after you wipe out into a fruit stand and your homemade bank of megaphones snaps off and flies through the window of a nearby deli.

I think he got the message though. And even if he didn't, I imagine the sprint for his life helped him drop a few pounds, so I figure I'm karmically in the clear on this one either way. Bricks out.

º Last Column: Vote Knievel
º more columns

"I've been looking for love in all the wrong places, but I've learned a lot about Dragonball Z in the process."

Are you hungry? I'm hungry. But I don't feel bad about it anymore. It happens to everybody. If someone tries to make you feel bad for being hungry, just tell them, it's normal for your average human being to get hungry 50 to 65 times a day. Depending on how much you work out.

But it's okay to get hungry, because there's lots of different foods out there to eat. Apples. Rack of lamb. Ketchup packets—if you're in a rush or not as hungry as usual. Some people even eat other people if they get hungry enough, but let me tell you it better be really hard circumstances, like you're stuck in a lifeboat together and one of you is dying. Or you have their permission.

If you don't want to jump right to eating people, try delivery food. It's great. Even the crummiest shitholes, like Boswell, Oklahoma, have delivery food these days. You can get pizza delivered right to your door, or your window, if you throw a few extra dollars in it for the guy. Other places have delivery now, too—sub sandwiches, chicken wings, salads, pizzas, bread of questionable mental stability, Mexican food. Chinese food, they even have Chinese food delivery, and believe me, that's a long trip.

I say the delivery thing hasn't gone far enough, or has yet too far to go, however the phrasing should be. In some places you can get groceries, cold food, delivered to your house. You can get mail even—crazy world. People will deliver cars to your house, some companies. There are even some thieves who will come right to your house—no more need to go out.

I would like to see a day where everything is delivered right to you. Bring the mountain to Mohammad, the Arab Bible says, and I agree. Doctors should call on you right at your house—can you imagine the day?

That's only the beginning, or the middle since the beginning is all the stuff we already have. All kinds of crazy services will be the way of the future. You can get flu shots or tax forms or someone can come out to your house and appraise how much it's worth—all without having to leave, or cart your house in on the back of a flatbed to the bank. Already the internet has made it where you don't have to leave your house to start receiving threatening messages or to be hounded by people with weird fetishes. Which reminds me, I've got some stuff I've got to do when I get finished with this.

Clowns? You like clowns? Shitloads of clowns will pile out of a special truck and they'll be doing cartwheels and all sorts of whacky crap right on your lawn. You'll be up to your ass in clowns until you're sick of them. Then you call the gun shop and have them bring over a double-barrel to chase off the goddamn clowns. 'Cause you can only stand so much, you know, before you go apeshit.

No more looking for love, either. I dream of the day, eventually, when love comes right to your door. Some charming lady dressed just the way you want will come right to your door. You get all the love you want, give her some money, then she goes away and you can watch TV. Not today. But someday.

º Last Column: Free Indian
º more columns