ompanies are lining up around the block this year to take part in the coolest trend to hit corporate America since "creative accounting": competing to see who can co-opt the most inappropriate pop anthem for their advertising campaign.

Hip companies everywhere stood up and took notice in 2004, when Carnival Cruise Lines kicked off this latest run on large-scale irony by snatching up Iggy Pop's heroin anthem "Lust for Life" for use in ads for their overweight middle-aged vacation cruises. While Carnival claims not to discriminate against guests based on whether or not they can make it through a buffet dinner without a fix of smack, most physicians recommend against combining heroin and shuffleboard.

"Disregard for artists is back," explained corporate trend-watcher Trevor Hamilton. "In fact, it's red hot."

Hamilton followed his comment with an embarrassing "-pssssss- ow!" burnt-finger gesture that we only mention because we don't like him.

Cadillac scored a major coup when they landed the Led Zeppelin classic "Rock 'n Roll" to advertise their old fogey cars. Industry observers consider this to be an especially cool victory for GM, since aside from the disorienting clash of associating rock music with land yachts, the song's lyrics are also quite clearly about sex, something most Cadillac drivers have foregone for years in favor of golf.

Others point to the brilliance of the Gap landing AC/DC's classic "Back in Black" for their ads, a song by a metal band with incredibly awful fashion sense, even for Australians.

However, few can top the catastrophically cool usage of Bob Dylan's seminal "The Times They Are A Changin'" by the Bank of Montreal in 1996, recasting a song about the dissolution of old power into an anthem for money management.

"A bank? A freaking bank?" gushed Hamilton, wetly. "That's just brilliant! That's like getting a Rage Against the Machine song to advertise duck pate."

Particularly popular this year is the use of sexually inappropriate tunes for advertising products aimed at small children. Advertising executives express their admiration for a recent spot using Salt N Pepa's raunchy sex come-on "Push It" to sell orange creamsicle push-pops, and another that featured Power Station's stiff-dick anthem "Some Like it Hot" in an effort to sell Hot Pockets.

Other upcoming salvos in the war for the most jarringly inappropriate corporate anthem include the Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket" to be used in an upcoming ad for Albertsons, a soon-to-be-released recruiting ad for the U.S. Army featuring Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.", The Police's "Every Breath You Take" being used to hock the Apple iCam webcam, and Disney's continued misuse of the Guns n' Roses drug and prostitution saga "Welcome to the Jungle" for the DVD re-releases of Bambi, the Lion King, The Jungle Book and Tarzan.

As of press time, definitive word could not be reached as to whether or not President Bush plans to jump on the bandwagon, switching his presidential theme song from R.E.M.'s "World Leader Pretend," to something more inappropriate, like Bill Withers' 1972 hit, "Lean on Me."

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Admit it: you'd kick your own mother in the cooch to find out what the hell is going on with ABC's Lost, only your mother won't let you anywhere near her after you slammed her head in that sliding glass door to find out who killed Laura Palmer. Have no fear, violent reader; the commune is here for you. If not to give out answers, then to at least share your confusion in a public forum.

I've been asked to serve as the commune's television expert this week, both because I haven't written anything in a while (let he without slack cast the first stone) and nobody else here knows dick about TV. Commune answer hole Griswald Dreck refuses to watch television at all on the grounds of haughty condescension, which is similar to Orson Welch's excuse that he hates everyone and without the confining effect of a movie theater audience is highly likely to physically attack the television. That leaves Roland McShyster and me, and I got the assignment after Roland asked somebody in the office if Fish Police won any Emmys this year.

So here we are, mightily confused and alone after last week's stunning episode, when things finally turned ugly on headshot island, a place populated entirely by beautiful castaways and Hurley. Sawyer fucked everybody, which we were all waiting for, some of us more literally than others. And it looks like Charlie fucked the duck again, following up his previous week's freak-out with the highly-effective reconciliatory strategy of total, apeshit betrayal. This guy makes such consistently shitty decisions, he should have a position in the Bush Administration.

We had more topless Sawyer this week, which reminds me of something I needed to say to all the women out there who were bitching about actor Josh Holloway's "nothing special" physique: obviously none of you have ever seen a real man naked before. Trust me, most of the time it's like something out of Alien Autopsy. But it is refreshing to see that men aren't the only ones with insane concepts of physical beauty these days.

In the recap at the beginning of this latest episode, they made sure to flash back to footage of Captain Otherbeard warning the Losties to stay off his half of the island, which makes me think they must have carnival rides or something fun over on the other side. If it's just more island shit, palm trees and crazy people with accents, I'm gonna be pissed off.

Probably the most amazing thing about the people who survived the plane crash is that these are the only people on earth who could meet up with a gang that's been living on bizarre-o island for God knows how long, talk to them, and still not learn a damned thing about the dozens of mysteries that have been perplexing everyone for months now. But it was established long ago that our castaways subscribe to the "Loose Lips Sink Ships" doctrine, a 1940's slogan about venereal disease originally meant to warn men that sleeping with slutty women would, in all likelihood, make their penises fall off, but now applied mostly to not investigating mysteries or telling anyone what's going on, including the viewers of the show.

So what now? Well, I can tell you one thing. Don't watch The Island expecting any answers, since that turned out to be one of those "spin off" movies that doesn't really have much to do with the original show. I still need to punch Roland McShyster in the throat for recommending that one to me.

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I'm sick and fatigued by the state of the world, and I'm sure you are too, unless you're one of the assholes who's part of the problem. Which, chances are, you are, because there's only like ten cool people in the world, but I don't have their addresses so I'm gonna have to just hope they read the commune.

This world is full to the brim with crap. Like war. What's that good for? And techno music. What's that good for? Absolutely nothing. At least war has lead to some pretty cool movies. Techno hasn't even done that. Other things that suck: homelessness, celebrities, country music, pitbulls eating babies, racism, NASCAR, people who say they know judo but don't know shit, polo, candy corn, the death penalty, abortion, anti-abortion, Creed, humidity, Mormons, and cancer.

Sometimes it's enough to make you want to give up and just smoke crack and watch porno all day. But even that gets old after a while. This same DP scene again? Couldn't they have at least included some alternate angle features on the DVD or something? I mean, yeah, it's not even a DVD, it's an old VHS tape that you found in the closet of your apartment when you moved in, but still.

The other obvious solutions is just to drive through the streets, shooting people at random, hoping you don't hit too many of the people that make it all worthwhile, like Jamie Kennedy. But not all of us are crack shots, and you forget to roll down the window once or you space that you can't shoot through the windshield and suddenly your whole car's like a burrito stuffed with glass. That's a fine thanks for just wanting to make the world a better place.

I've felt like the whole situation was hopeless for years, until I saw this bumpersticker the other day that laid it all out with no bullshit. It said "We Must Become the Change We Want to See in the World," next to a drawing of John Lennon with a shaved head. Shit yeah. I mentioned seeing that bumpersticker to a friend, who explained that actually wasn't a drawing of Lennon, it was Idi Amin. No shit. I think that Amin guy knew his stuff. And I've adopted that bumpersticker as my new personal philosophy, which I haven't done since "Shit Happens" in the third grade, not counting those two weeks last year when I was really into "Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like a Banana."

But this Amin bumpersticker is way deeper than all that. What it basically means is "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem, dicksuck, so shut the fuck up." And that really hit me hard. So I've decided to take action.

You know how everybody's always driving all slow and shit, slowing way down going around turns, like old people and whatever, just to piss you off? Not me. Now I'm setting the cruise control at 45 and I don't slow down for shit. If your tires don't screech when you go around a turn, you're part of the problem, bud.

Another major problem we've got is Americans signing up for the Army and going over to Iraq and shooting the place all to shit. Not me. I signed up for the Army the other day, but when they come to get me, sorry squares. I'll be up in Canada, living the good life. Sucks to be you.

Abortion's another one, and both sides of that argument are full of assholes. So I'm going to do something about it. I'm gonna go out and get a girl pregnant, and I'll be goddamned if she's going to have an abortion. Watch and learn, world. To top it all off, we're not even going to get married, because the divorce rate is way too high in this country. And if her warmonger father comes around with a shotgun, demanding that I marry her or provide financial support, well suck on this padre: I already split for Canada.

Get in line, chumps. The change starts with me.

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