Are You Shot? an Iraqi Reality Hit

he most recent Nielsen ratings released Monday confirm the surprising success of ABC’s controversial new show, Are You Shot?, an unscripted reality program featuring former soap opera star Lorenzo Lamas and a panel of judges critiquing the injuries suffered by American GIs and civilians in post-war Iraq.

Critics and social commentators have savaged the program ever since it rose from the ashes of ABC’s ill-fated reality dud Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People, which was cancelled earlier this year due to lukewarm ratings and a lawsuit by radio shock jock Howard Stern. Despite claims that the new show (which features Lamas detailing puss-soaked head wounds and missing limbs with a laser pointer) is in appallingly bad taste and degrades the whole of humanity, U.S. viewers can’t get enough.

“I always want to keep up on what’s going on over there in Iraq, but it can be so tough,� explained avid viewer and bakery assistant Megan Herbert. “One minute we’re the bad guys, then the good guys, then the bad guys again, then a deli blows up. I like it better when there’s points and we can see who’s winning.�

Producers set up the show by dividing Iraq into twelve different “Hell Zones,� geographical regions from which contestants would be drawn. Each episode of the show focuses on contestants from a different zone, with viewers voting over the Internet on which challenger had been most severely fucked-up as a result of the ongoing U.S. occupation.

Early episodes of the show have scored Nielsen ratings as high as 26.3, besting such popular reality staples as Temptation Island and Oops, I Ate Your Dog. Such a surprising early success has ABC executives buzzing about possible record ratings for the planned season finale in the “Hell Zone� of the Sunni Triangle. Thus far, the Nielsen Media Research corporation has been unable to track accurate ratings for the show in Iraq itself, due to the small number of working televisions in the country which haven’t been either kicked in or bartered for food.

On top of suggesting that the show devalues human suffering and takes too long to get to the good gory parts, critics have also slammed Are You Shot? for extending the career of celebrity waste-of-space Lorenzo Lamas, who until recently was making ends meet lending his talents to a celebrity prank-calling service.

“Sure, some people may argue that the show is in poor taste,� admitted Lamas, while compulsively highlighting this reporter’s papercut with his laser pointer. “But America has always thrived on raising poor taste to the level of an art form. Without our example, the rest of the world would have no way of knowing when the bottom of the barrel has been scraped.�

“Hold on a second,� Lamas interrupted, glancing at his watch as he dialed a cell phone. “Hello, this is Lorenzo Lamas, from Falcon Crest. Do you have Prince Albert in a can? No, no, that’s Prince Harry. No, I don’t think he would actually fit in a can. Yes, he is quite adorable. Uh-huh, you’re right on that. Okay. Okay, thank you. Goodbye.�

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Sharon Still in Coma, Phyllis Still Total Slutbag

Dear commune:

I appreciate your views and your attention to the various sources of news out there. the
commune is one of the finest Internet publications I've ever read, and that's not saying
much. But I'm afraid I write to you with matters other than praise in mind.

I have recently been treed by a large Kodiak bear. In fact, it was less than thirty minutes
ago. I'm afraid I am stumped for what to do. The branches are weakening and the bear has attempted repeatedly to either jump up and grab me or push the tree over with his brute strength and I'm afraid he'll yet succeed.

Please do not ask how I am able to communicate via the mail from my current whereabouts and situation. Also, please do not suggest I throw food to him to distract him. If I had food with me I surely wouldn't be writing to the commune without trying that first. Thank you and step on the response, please.

Donald Grady
Cabrio, WY


Dear Donald:

Okay, so… how'd you get the letter mailed once again? Yeah, I know you said don't,
but… what's the deal? It boggles our minds.

the commune

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Dear commune:

I really, really like camp here. I was wrong. I said I didn't want to come and I didn't but
I'm glad I came because it is a lot of fun here.

The counselors say nice things to me and we have to work real hard all day and exercise
and they never give us real food and a lot of the kids turn up missing once in a while but
they usually show up sooner or later when they're caught and brought back. Best of all, no one calls me fat here and nobody calls none of the kids here. Besides the guy who brings the food in on the truck he always says, "Another drop off for the fat kids camp." But all the camp counselors say husky and even the kids don't call me fat because they're all fat.

Some are fatter than me. I mean husky.

I want to come home.

Christopher Pinzer
Camp Positive, KS


Dear Christopher:

Maybe he had a dog or something that ran the letter down from the tree. But how would a
dog climb a tree? And if he had the dog, maybe the bear would've tried to eat it or at least
chased it and he could've gotten down from the tree anyway. And couldn't the dog have
just carried a note to someone who could get a park ranger or something? Instead of
addressing, stamping, and mailing a letter. Puzzling.

the commune

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Dear commune:

Here are hot XXX pictures of my girlfriend. She's a fine-ass whore. She loves to suck it
from a bucket.

I think you can throw away all the other entries right now. Ain't nobody a hot-ass honey
more than my girl. She does it all. All anal, all oral, all over the place. She may be entering
your "Hottest Amateur" contest but she does it all like a pro. Ain't nobody getting' no
better. And she's mine, all mine, fellas. You can look but you better not touch.

Okay, you got me. She's not my girlfriend. But she is my sister. Do I still get the prize
money?

Ronnie Hulmut
Little Chuck, AR


Dear Ronnie:

It's possible maybe, just maybe, he suspected he might be treed by a Kodiak bear without
food for distracting it, and prepared a letter to mail to us in case he didn't come back within a certain amount of time. But that seems highly unlikely. Such a detailed letter and he didn't say he was mailing it in advance? Did a psychic maybe tell him it was possible a Kodiak bear was going to catch him up a tree and he should turn to us for help? But if he had any inclination surely he would've taken a cell phone or something at least, or bear food or some tranquilizers. Or at least a friend to go and get the ranger. What the hell's the deal?

the commune

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Editor's Note: the commune is not responsible for anything printed on our website. We've been taking everything straight from www.villagevoice.com and just replacing the names for weeks now.

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Nedwrinkle Nedmiller has a dream, ladies and gentlementarians. It is a dream that one day a giant mouse will come to town driving a fire truck, and everyone will give that mouse money, but Nedmiller will be out of money. Ned spent all his money buying cream pies to throw at the governor on the Eve of Meringue, a holiday tradition that goes back as far as the settlin' days, when the wild coyotes played Frisbee in the prairies and them prairie dogs done pushed a couch into the river and nobody can get their undershorts washed for Sunday churchin' because of it. Goddamn them prairie dogs.

In this dream Nedmonkey's got no cash to be givin to the fire-truck driving mouse, and is feeling right ashamed because of it. The rest of the town is having a grand old time, giving the firetruck mouse their tens and twenties, their fives and their rare commemorative eight dollar bills that were minted so folks wouldn't have to break a twenty when they're renting rollerskates for the annual Holy Molar-Rink skating party to promote good teeth and God and all. Though Ned always had to break a 20 anyways since he liked to get his skates sharpened and his incisors capped on a yearly basis.

So every damned body is forking over their greenbacks to the fire-truck driving mouse, little kids be smashing open their pigglybanks with little newborn puppies and women older than Union Steel are prying open them change purses to fling their buffalo nickels at the mouse. And there's Nedrumple, penniless and excluded, feelin' like a polo jockey on prom night.

So Ned hops on the back of a pair of safety scissors that're waltzin down the street, and rides them lefties to Giant Land, where things is bigger than average. Ned sneaks into a giant's house and steals himself a gigantic mousetrap from the giant's attic. On the way out, Ned hears a boomin' voice speak out "Feeb Flies Fort Fumes! I Smell the Cologne of an Old Spice Man!" but Nedrip is purely an ambergris kind of Nedmiller so the biggun must've been speaking to another tiny man come visiting from the Land of Average-Sized Things. Anyhow, t'was not Ned's concern so he made his way back home via a hole in the Time-Life Conundrum, picking up some butterfly milk on the way home.

Once back in the Land of Things Not So Large, Ned set up them giant mouse-trap in the middle of Rhubarb street, aimin' to teach that giant mouse a lesson about comin' to town and acceptin' money from everybody on days when Nedro was flush out of funds. Ned was about to think up a brilliant plan to lure them mouse into them hinged contraption of doom when out of nowhere the governor came running up to see if the mouse would take Mastercard. The gov'ner done stepped in one of Ned's cream pies, which stuck to his shoe and he stumbled right into the giant mouse trap, which cut him in half like a giant fellow bent on making a meal of governors.

It was as tragic a scene as Ned has been witness to in the last three-quarters of an hour, but when that trap came down on the governor, just before he was divided into two equal half-governors, he let out a squeak just like a giant mouse would be expected to do, resulting in such comedy that Ned and the giant mouse laughed themselves half silly. Having bonded so completely, Ned and the giant mouse went and sat on top of the great pyramid and ate giant flavored gumdrops, best friends from that day forward. Until moments later when Ned was woken up quite unexpectedly by crabs a-nibblin' on his toes and the dreamtime was done. Ned Nedmiller has this dream.

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