Senator John Edwards Not the Guy Who Talks to Dead

he country received two unexpected announcements Thursday, when Democrat John Edwards, a freshman Senator from North Carolina, told NBC he would run for president in 2004. Edwards then stunned everyone with the revelation that he was actually not the John Edward from the syndicated Sci-Fi Channel show Crossing Over.

Edward, who claims to be a medium who can talk to dead people, could not be reached for comment. This reporter then asked dead reporter Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown to get a quote from Edward, but Edward did not respond, and only pissed himself.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Edwards was firm in his insistence he was not the John Edward that talks to the dead.

"Of course I don't talk to the dead. I've never even heard of that John Edward. But if he is an American, I will do my best to represent him just as I will represent all other Americans when I am president. I have served North Carolina faithfully during my time in office, and I will serve the country just as well. All I ask is for your vote."

Edwards' political rhetoric continued for at least thirty more minutes, then this reporter left for a sandwich.

Edwards' decision to run for the Democratic nomination for president follows the announcement by former Vice-President Al Gore that he will not run in 2004, citing happiness with his new beard. Edwards enters the race against Jay Leno-lookalike Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, as well as potential candidates Sen. Tom "No, Seriously, I'm Running" Daschle and Sen. Dick "Last Name Never Looks Real" Gephardt.

Sen. Edwards told the press Friday his campaign would address key issues and attempt to overcome the Senator's disadvantages. Edwards campaign buttons were passed out with clarifying statements such as, "He's not the one that talks to dead people" and "The Senator, not the medium," as well as image-focused buttons with the Sci-Fi Channel's John Edward's face crossed out and Sen. John Edwards' face circled. Edwards' campaign manager Charles Manson (not the ritual murderer) unveiled a banner at campaign headquarters reading, "John Edwards for President. No, the other John Edwards."

Manson was optimistic about Edwards' chances, yet acknowledged there would be obstacles.

"Is it an uphill battle?" Manson asked, then answered before anyone else could. "Yes. Is it impossible? Not at all. Senator John Edwards is a dedicated and determined man, and he has set his sights on this and will pursue it as far as possible. I can give you my personal guarantee that, when the Senator is done, everyone in America will be convinced he is not the guy from the Crossing Over show. We have a three-pronged attack: Get his face out there, get his position as Senator in the public mind, and stress that he has never and likely never will communicate with the dead. By the time our campaign is over, the other John Edward will be known as 'the other John Edwards.'"

As for the Senators' hopes for winning a presidential race against George W. Bush?

"Oh," replied Manson. "We hadn't really thought that far ahead. Are you sure Bush can run in 2004? Won't his term limits expire by then or anything?"

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Well, I've officially drank enough eggnog to kill a goat, resulting last night in a terrifying vision of Christmas Future. Either that or I was at a U2 concert. Any way you slice it, I'm running out after work to buy the biggest chicken I can find and give it to some Cuban refugee children to use as a boat, or something.

It's clear as fish's piss that the time has come for Stu Umbrage to change his ways, I've been wind sprinting down the wrong path for far too long. I don't know if it's going to entail doing some charity work, or maybe just dating a girl named Charity, frankly if that second option counts I'm tending to lean that way. Not that I've got any problem with wiping barf off the chins of little alcoholic kids or whatever you're supposed to do to get in good with the lord or other assorted deities these days. But if I can earn some equivalency points by hot-tubbing with some aerobics instructor who had hippie parents, well, sorry little lushes. I don't know if I could live with myself if I took the "high road" on that one. Also known as "Sucker Street".

Whatever it is, I've got to do something quick, though. The last thing I want is to wake up one morning with one of those gigantic Mardi Gras heads. Don't ask, it was a dream I had. At first I was wanting to write it off as some bad clams ate after dark, like "That shit doesn't happen," but then I started to think about it, and what if it does? What if some poor sucker has the dream, ignores it and then wakes up with his gourd taking up the whole bed? There could be hundreds of guys like that out there, you'd never know because it's not like they'd ever leave the house looking like that. Christ, you'd get laughed out of the hat store. Nobody needs that.

It's not like I've been a terrible guy, but I won't argue that my life hasn't been misspent thus far. Hell, my pocket money is misspent, why should my life be any different? I still have craploads of Furbies left over from when those things were popular. I'm not kidding, I have a whole closet full of them. You open the door and it sounds like end of the world. My neighbors called the cops once because they thought I was smuggling illegal immigrants into the country, but then the cops wouldn't come in because they were afraid my apartment was possessed by Satan. I tried to explain, but it's hard to present a lucid narrative when you're constantly being interrupted by "Oooooh! Dark! Brrrrrum-ruum-ruum!"

Those little Mogwai fuckers have cost me more than one girlfriend, believe me.

For that reason and a laundry-list of others, it's time to make some changes. Not quite head-shaving, pimp-shooting changes, but serious nonetheless. First, it's time to admit that my five-year plan to become Bjork has been a dismal failure. I blame neither myself nor the lack of support from Bjork's family, it's clear this whole thing was just not meant to happen. It's time to move on.

Second, it's becoming painfully, ass-numbingly obvious that the move to New York was a mistake. For some reason I thought it would be the land of milk and honey, I'm not sure what I was thinking. It should have been obvious, Wisconsin is where milk comes from. I don't know about honey. But New York is the land of shit and money, which is close but not the same thing. Between the commune's base pay of "good friends, good times and some magic beans" and the rising price of pay toilets in the city, something's going to go Chernobyl in the near future.

Which is why it's high time for Stu Umbrage to get back to his roots. No, not Wisconsin. Jesus. Those roots can stay there. I'm thinking more the open road, the wind in my hair, and the desert stretching out before me. I'm thinking cheap rent and an alcoholic workforce that puts me at the top of headhunting lists just for showing up. I'm thinking New Mexico. I'm in the mood for a place where you can buy Peyote at the supermarket. That's the kind of state where a man can get some soul-searching done, and crap for free. Sign me up.

So, although I've had a good run here at the commune in the last ten months, I think it's time to ramble on. Don't tell Bagel though, I plan on leaving a mannequin in my chair and am paying Rok Finger to turn in one column from my backlog every couple weeks just in case nobody notices I'm gone and they keep paying me. After all, beans can come in handy on a road trip, and all it'll cost me is a couple bottles of Old Spice. I told Finger they stopped making the stuff but that I had the last few bottles stashed away, I'm not sure if he believed me but he didn't want to risk it.

Wish me luck, commune readers. If and when I get to a state of Zen I'll send you a postcard, though I warn you now that it'll probably have no words and just a pear on it or something. You know how that Zen shit is.

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If you were paying any attention last column, and not just skimming for mentions of supermodel sex, you'll remember I started a story about building a new Bricksmobile and running down to Sears to get a floodlight for the garage, and how those cheap fuckers tried to con me into paying fifteen large for some kind of gold-plated adapter. Long story short, I remembered I already had an adapter at home, so I called their bluff and let them contemplate my bare ass on the way out the door.

I went home, dug up the adapter and with a little elbow grease I managed to get it to plug into the floodlight. Turned the whole shebang on and no light, but a weird humming noise and the place started to smell like a hair salon. I figured the adapter might have gone bad some time while I was using it to prop up the washing machine, so I unhooked it from the light and considered ways to test to see if the adapter was still good.

When I was a kid, Mom Bricks showed me a trick about how to tell if a battery was still good or not. This was back before they started putting those worthless little pretend power gauge stickers on batteries as part of a partnership with America's Funniest Home Videos, and even before they built that flimsy battery tester into the package.

Nope, back then when you found a AA rolling around back behind the refrigerator, you had to call up NASA and read tea leaves or some shit to find out if it was still any good. Sure, you could wipe off the corroded cat hair, pop it in your Walkman and just hope, but then when the tape started freaking out and playing at one quarter speed half-way through No Sleep Till Brooklyn you had no idea whether it was that battery or one of the seven others that was puttin' on the shits.

So, unless you wanted to get a summer job or something so you could replace all the batteries, you had to find some way to figure out which of the coppertops was riding bitch. Shaking them seemed like a good idea, but they didn't make any obvious half-empty rattling noises, plus since they were so small it was hard to be sure unless you shook your head the same way while you held the battery to your ear, and that just got confusing.

Likewise, tapping on them was no good, and tests to see if the empty ones rolled slower proved inconclusive. None of them floated, and if you cut one in half with bolt cutters it made a huge mess and you couldn't use it then anyway, even if it turned out to have plenty of juice left. That's when Mom Bricks stepped in and showed me that if you touch the end of the battery to your tongue, you get a little shock if it's still good. I later learned this works for other body parts too, though that's a story for another column.

Fast-forward to Saturday night, and what works for a battery should work for an adapter, right? Well, I touched the end of the adapter cord to my tongue and there's no nice way to say how fast the Omar Bricks weekend went to pot after that. I don't really want to talk about it.

Let's just suffice it to say that's the first time I've ever shit out anything that was on fire.

Bricks Out.

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