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Man Resting Comfortably After Candy Heart TransplantJanuary 7, 2002 |
Indianapolis, IN Junior Bacon Sugar-based heart keeps Tarwell alive, sweet
Tarwell, a 62-year-old ladder climber, had been waiting two years for a donor heart due to a weakening of his own heart after the cancellation of Baywatch. Doctors were growing increasingly alarmed Tarwell would never make the top of the donor list, as itâs all in who you know.
âFinally, we got desperate and drank a few bottles of Kentucky Bourbon between all of us,â stated Tarwellâs surgeon Michael Matuzo, âand I think at that point someone bet me I wouldnât put a candy heart in him. By the time I woke up out of the haze...
n Saturday Ollie Tarwell of Decatur, Illinois entered the medical history books as the worldâs first candy heart transplant. Tarwellâs doctors say his recovery is going surprisingly well in these initial post-op stages. Tarwell, a 62-year-old ladder climber, had been waiting two years for a donor heart due to a weakening of his own heart after the cancellation of Baywatch. Doctors were growing increasingly alarmed Tarwell would never make the top of the donor list, as itâs all in who you know. âFinally, we got desperate and drank a few bottles of Kentucky Bourbon between all of us,â stated Tarwellâs surgeon Michael Matuzo, âand I think at that point someone bet me I wouldnât put a candy heart in him. By the time I woke up out of the haze I was already closing and he was showing good signs.â The candy heart, which is the size of a human fist and purchased at a novelty store in Indianapolis next to the hospital, reads, âLove Machineâ on the front. Doctors are surprised at how well it pumps blood throughout the body and shows no signs of failure. And because itâs candy, the body refuses to reject it. âThe transplant team couldnât agree in entirety on what to use,â said Matuzo, fielding questions about the surgery. âA few of us liked the message âSweet Thing,â but the rest of us thought it sounded gay. Iâd hate to be in a traffic accident, lying all cut up next to my heart and have it saying âSweet Thingâ when the paramedics show up. How weird is that?â Tarwell is already out of bed and reportedly cleaning his floor of the hospital, but doctors say after the initial sugar high wears off he will likely resume normal activity with only a headache as a side-effect. In order to keep his candy heart functioning properly, he is under strict orders to exercise, diet, and eat a pound of sugar or artificial sweetner a day. The nationâs transplant doctors are reacting with fervor in the wake of the surprising medical miracle. Seven new candy heart transplants are being planned this week, and doctors are already looking into the feasibility of candy livers, kidneys, and pancreas. âFrankly,â said surgeon Donald Bakley, âpancreatic transplant isnât likely to be too successful. Once you can make a candy organ that is capable of producing normal amounts of insulin, youâve also just loaded the body with the biggest piece of sugar available. Talk about a catch-22.â Tarwell is expected to make a full recovery and resume his former ladder-scaling business. Candy organ transplant groups have also begun fervently razzing scientists working on cloning human organs, jeering at them to âCatch up.â If you run a candy store and would like to donate organs upon your death, please fill out the back of your driverâs license and specify âcandyâ under the heading âtype.â the commune news⌠donât that beat all! Red Bagel is the communeâs fearless editor and wearer of fine Colombian hats.
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Long National Nightmare Finally Over: Andy Griffith Dead
Student who wed Letourneau finally receives passing grade
Headless bodies found in Iraq listed in critical but stable condition
Enron lawsuit settled for 3,000,000 ohms of free energy
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Conservative Woman Found he White House, always on the search for rare species of human beings or close approximations, unearthed an impressive find last week: A female conservative. Defying usual stereotypes, the so-called right-wing woman is apparently not a career politician or from the deep rural South. In fact, shes completed higher education and appears to be not at all an idiot of any sort—though field-testing leaves the possibility open. And, perhaps most startling of all, the administration found the rare species in the most unlikeliest of places—within its own ranks. The alleged female Republican is Harriet Miers, White House attorney and personal lawyer to the Bush clan for years. Born and raised in Dallas, a small state in the country of Texas, Miers earned several accolades for her legal work and previous appointments by Texas governor George W. Bush, no relation to the current president. Though she lacks any bench experience, discounting bus stops, Miers is a respected lawyer, despite being personal attorney to the president and the White House counsel. Fox Disappointed by Desperate Alien Prison Escape Ratings he new television season barely underway, Fox executives are already lamenting the low ratings for their most calculated new show of the season, Desperate Alien Prison Escape. We dont understand it, lamented stunned network executive Roger Bacon. This show capitalized on every hot trend currently on TV. We even had swearing. It should have been the biggest hit of all time. Fuck. Foxs latest ratings hopeful follows the travails of Juk, a member of a secret alien invasion conspiracy who intentionally gets arrested for sleeping with a bored suburban housewife in order to help his cousin escape from jail, using a detailed map he had tattooed on his scrotum, which due to his alien anatomy is located where a human beings eyelids would be. Oasis, Killers Combine Forces to Ruin Sgt. Peppers for Everyone Global Warming Poses Threat to National Parks, Says WWFs Machoman Savage |
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 April 18, 2005
Check Your BreastsPansies everywhere agree: Feminism is important. At least that's what I hear every time my TV gets stuck on the women's channel, OBG or whatever it is. The Bricks TV does that sometimes, flips randomly through channels, which I guess is to be expected since the nerve center of the Bricks Manor entertainment center is a 1957 Tesla from Eastern Europe, which "came with the house" since it's too heavy to move out the front door. It's not even supposed to get cable, but I fixed that quick with a hand-hatchet and some wire I dug up out of the yard. Now the TV works fine, except Foghat barks at the thing like crazy whenever it's raining, and no plants will grow in that room.
But regardless, Omar Bricks has always had a great respect for women's issues. Seriously. It might surprise some to be informed that Omar Bricks is considered by many to be one of the great feminist thinkers of the 21st century. By whom? There's got to be somebody out there. Prove me wrong.
Now that that death-threat dodge is out of the way, we can get to the meat and beans of the column. I was sitting out on the roof the other day, engaging in the hallowed spring ritual of throwing Easter eggs at Mitch's dogs when I had my stroke of genius: What was stopping me from setting up my own mobile mammography business?
I'm not sure where the idea came from, but I didn't want to question that too deeply in case it turned out to be voodoo or something I saw on M.A.S.H....
º Last Column: Cordially Requesting Your Restraint
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Pansies everywhere agree: Feminism is important. At least that's what I hear every time my TV gets stuck on the women's channel, OBG or whatever it is. The Bricks TV does that sometimes, flips randomly through channels, which I guess is to be expected since the nerve center of the Bricks Manor entertainment center is a 1957 Tesla from Eastern Europe, which "came with the house" since it's too heavy to move out the front door. It's not even supposed to get cable, but I fixed that quick with a hand-hatchet and some wire I dug up out of the yard. Now the TV works fine, except Foghat barks at the thing like crazy whenever it's raining, and no plants will grow in that room.
But regardless, Omar Bricks has always had a great respect for women's issues. Seriously. It might surprise some to be informed that Omar Bricks is considered by many to be one of the great feminist thinkers of the 21st century. By whom? There's got to be somebody out there. Prove me wrong.
Now that that death-threat dodge is out of the way, we can get to the meat and beans of the column. I was sitting out on the roof the other day, engaging in the hallowed spring ritual of throwing Easter eggs at Mitch's dogs when I had my stroke of genius: What was stopping me from setting up my own mobile mammography business?
I'm not sure where the idea came from, but I didn't want to question that too deeply in case it turned out to be voodoo or something I saw on M.A.S.H. last week. Instead I launched into action, borrowing my neighbor Hamms' Winnebago and hitting the road with a coat-hanger still sticking out of the door lock. Thinking smart from the start, I figured that a traveling cross-country mobile mammography business stood a better chance for success than one that was just parked in the parking lot of a Circle K.
That's a lesson I learned when I was driving a bookmobile before coming to work at the commune. Before you get your chinos in a bunch, let me clarify that I wasn't working for the library or whatever pack of nerds it is that unleashes the bookmobile from deep in the bowels of the Book Cave early every morning. No, I was just driving one, because they left it running and I needed a ride to the commune. But that day I learned just how valuable location can be. That bookmobile was parked outside the commune offices for three days and only two people took out books: Rok Finger checked out The Small Man's Guide to Talking Big and Bagel snaked Charlotte's Web because he thought it was about a Byzantine international conspiracy. That thing needed to be parked in front of a book store or something, not right outside this idiot-hole. Location, location, location.
For the first few states things were taking off pretty slow, I admit, and it occurred to me that the "NO FATTIES" bumpersticker I had put on the door was probably driving away business. But in this business, that's business Omar Bricks can afford to lose.
Business continued to puff a dong until I got to Pennsylvania, when I ran into a dude who wanted a boob job, which meant I had to alter the "BOOB JOBS: $5" sign I had mounted on the Winnebago's windshield. This dude was an especially impressive knob since I had written the sign backwards, so I could read it from inside the Winni, but I guess this guy was really determined to get his boobs jobbed.
So I had to make a new sign that said "WOMEN'S BOOBS JOBBED" instead. I wasn't sure about the technical terminology for mammography, or even exactly what it entailed beyond a feel-up, but either way "mammography" was way too long a word to fit on my sign without buying a smaller sharpie. And my business expenses were already way into the red from buying two slurpies and the posterboard back in Jersey. But there was no way around those basic expenses, otherwise I never would have been able to make that life-saving "TEST YOUR GAS FOR PHLOBYNOL" sign with the arrow pointing to the Winni's gas tank. Do you have any idea how expensive gas is nowadays? And do you have any idea how gullible people can be when you make up a word like Phlobynol?
Anyway, according to commune head chunk Gay Bagel I can't take seventeen pages to tell my column stories any more, no matter how badly this compromises the truth or the juicy details. Suffice it to say that Winnebagos can't float, even if they do look exactly like house boats, and a good mobile mammographer has to be able to get a bra off faster than it takes a mobile home to sink to the bottom of the Potomac. On the bright side, I'm already way ahead of last year's pace for losing other people's vehicles in large bodies of water, with over seven full months still to go. That's the other key to successful mobile mammography: Staying positive. Bricks out. º Last Column: Cordially Requesting Your Restraintº more columns
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|  November 29, 2004
Roasting Pockets O'ShannonI've got "hot property" written all over me at the moment, and I know what you're thinking, but I'm not talking about a drunken trip to the tattoo parlor this time. I mean, I've still got "hot property" from that, but this time I'm talking Hollywood talk, meaning that people suddenly remember my phone numbers. And it's all because of Ho's!
My new WB sitcom is getting hot buzz around it, thanks in part to all those phone calls where I pretended to be the TV Guide Couch Critic, and when your show's hot, you're hot, it's Hollywood science. Some people are calling this my big comeback, and not just me. I distinctly heard my agent Dusty say it, too, before he passed out and the 9-1-1 guys had to resuscitate him.
The real clue I was hot was when they called me to do a roast for my fellow actor and good friend Pockets O'Shannon. What a kick-ass child star. And Pockets was fortunate enough to have one of those weird health problems that kept him looking like a kid well after most of us grew facial hair or tits. The V.F.W. Hall was holding a roast for good ol' Pockets, turns out he's a Vietnam Vet, and guess who they picked for their keynote speaker? Guess again, asshole. Beloved child star Clarissa Coleman.
If you don't know, a roast is where you get up and just crack on people until they're pissed off enough to fight you in the parking lot. I've tried hosting a lot of them, but nobody really shows up unless the person's done something...
º Last Column: Ho's Job
º more columns
I've got "hot property" written all over me at the moment, and I know what you're thinking, but I'm not talking about a drunken trip to the tattoo parlor this time. I mean, I've still got "hot property" from that, but this time I'm talking Hollywood talk, meaning that people suddenly remember my phone numbers. And it's all because of Ho's!
My new WB sitcom is getting hot buzz around it, thanks in part to all those phone calls where I pretended to be the TV Guide Couch Critic, and when your show's hot, you're hot, it's Hollywood science. Some people are calling this my big comeback, and not just me. I distinctly heard my agent Dusty say it, too, before he passed out and the 9-1-1 guys had to resuscitate him.
The real clue I was hot was when they called me to do a roast for my fellow actor and good friend Pockets O'Shannon. What a kick-ass child star. And Pockets was fortunate enough to have one of those weird health problems that kept him looking like a kid well after most of us grew facial hair or tits. The V.F.W. Hall was holding a roast for good ol' Pockets, turns out he's a Vietnam Vet, and guess who they picked for their keynote speaker? Guess again, asshole. Beloved child star Clarissa Coleman.
If you don't know, a roast is where you get up and just crack on people until they're pissed off enough to fight you in the parking lot. I've tried hosting a lot of them, but nobody really shows up unless the person's done something to make 'em famous. And Pockets barely qualifies, having starred as the precocious, wise-cracking kid in about two dozen movies between 1969 and 1996. I did two of them with him, Li'l Poachers and The U.F.O. Boy.
I spent weeks thinking up real digs that would totally devastate Pockets, make him turn bright red, even piss himself with fury. All in good fun, of course, except for a few things about his grandmother's diabetes that really cross the line. But Pockets is a good sport, just don't ever say we lost the 'Nam, that grinds his nads.
Now you've got the backstory, so I show up for the gig (I never do rehearsals, I told 'em) and find out, no joking, they only wanted me to introduce all his 'Nam buddies, they were supposed to be the only ones actually roasting him. Sure, I told them I would just stick to the scripted introduction, like I've told a ton of know-it-all directors, then I got up there and threw out my scriptâno way I was going to waste gold material because these dopes lacked vision.
So you can bet I stung him. I started off simple, just how he smells really bad and hasn't worked in years, since losing all his hair in that chemotherapy, but then I got to the really hard stuff. Making fun of his Members' Only jacket ("Does your calendar say 1986 at home?" I really said that) and how his two sons are clearly fathered by some black guy. Then, I got a little more cerebral and allâand this was hard, because by this time these two old guys were trying to walk me off the stage, but I overpowered themâand I did this whole skit about him buying this really awful pot off some Mexican guy (I brought a mustache from home) for us to smoke, and then talked about that time he tried to grab my just-starting-to-form breasts while we were doing that Poachers movie. The best part was I closed on stuff I just made up on the spot, when his wife was calling out his name as he left, covering his faceâhis name was Lindsey O'Shannon the whole time, not Pockets. For real. Lindsey's a total girl's name.
I know they taped it, but they may have stopped the tape after they told me to get off the stage for the fifth time. The show was just too hot for the V.F.W., I'm pretty sure. But if I can get a copy of that tape and get it to the right people in Vegas, I know I could get side gigs lined up for years to come. Just to cover me when Ho's! gets canceled. Always good to have a Plan B. º Last Column: Ho's Jobº more columns
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Quote of the Day“Ask not what your country can do for you; cuz trust me, you ain't gonna get shit that way.”
-John Fitzpatrick KentuckyFortune 500 CookieOrganization is the key to surviving life's travails. Try sorting your problems large to small, then run like hell. Nobody can stand your face, voice or odor, but on the upside, everyone likes your car. This week's lucky ways to die: hanging plus drowning, three-year diarrhea, shop 'til you drop, the summertime blues.
Try again later.Top 5 commune Features This Week| 1. | Vito Wants His Money Back Yesterday | | 2. | Trust: 10 Lies to Get It | | 3. | Donate Money to Help Us Burn Sugar Ray's Guitar | | 4. | Underwear Your Dog Can Wear | | 5. | Uncle Macho's Harbor-Fresh Ice | |
|   North Korea Pissed Their Real-Life Hunger Games Nowhere Near as Popular as Movie BY Orson Welch 11/18/2011 I will not let that scourge Zender mar my column with an explanation. Suffice to say I have taken to writing professionally, though I am as yet unpaid in that endeavor, I think I give tough but fair critiques of all the latest in lingerie, and itâs far more enjoyable than reviewing worthless films. Aside from that I maintain my Assistant Managerâs position at Hardeeâs for income. When the self-proclaimed resurrector of the commune invited me back to review films for another edition of Entertainment Police, I was resistant, but as that well-named McShyster was not on hand to crowd my thunder, I determined it was a good way to get my name out there and stoke interest in my feminine sleepwear reviews. So letâs get the ball rolling in the most venomous way I know how: Shaming you for...
I will not let that scourge Zender mar my column with an explanation. Suffice to say I have taken to writing professionally, though I am as yet unpaid in that endeavor, I think I give tough but fair critiques of all the latest in lingerie, and itâs far more enjoyable than reviewing worthless films. Aside from that I maintain my Assistant Managerâs position at Hardeeâs for income. When the self-proclaimed resurrector of the commune invited me back to review films for another edition of Entertainment Police, I was resistant, but as that well-named McShyster was not on hand to crowd my thunder, I determined it was a good way to get my name out there and stoke interest in my feminine sleepwear reviews. So letâs get the ball rolling in the most venomous way I know how: Shaming you for all the movies you made hits in the years since I last wrote.
Transformers (2007)
In the words of the great John F. Kennedy: Come on, America. We can do better than this. The Hollywood blockbuster has been boiled down to its basics, and its shiny robots, automatons, beating the shit out of each other in the middle of a city. Director of Godzilla, Roland Emmerich, reportedly watched this film and apologized to the world. There is not a single human anywhere on screen in this entire film. That Megan Fox Real Doll is not even convincing, though yes, I would strangle the fleshy giraffe watching her bend and writhe around a hot rod, if only I could stomach cars and my movie-viewing room at work had a lock on it. The only thing more nauseating than the dialogue is seeing an animatronic Pirate of the Caribbean feature that looks uncannily like talented actor John Turturro speaking it. I donât know what he got paid to license his image to this cinematic holocaust, but Iâm sure dignity cannot be bought with the fee. Did I mention they made two more of them? If my will was law, everyone leaving the theater would have been sterilized and the films would have at least done some good to the world.
The Dark Knight (2008)
After Batman Began, he decided to start talking like the worldâs worst Fat Albert impression. Christian "Bail Me Out, You Fucking Bitch, Mom" stars as the titular hero, who either has throat cancer or has trouble speaking plainly with tight leather wrapped around his throat. If I remember correctly, Heath Ledger acted so well in this film it killed him, but most of it amounts to wisecracks and doing a McLovin voice all the way through the film. The plot is convoluted and involves more characters than a season of Deadwood, and the action sequences would have been far more enjoyable if they had decided to light them. But in the end, the film makes a great statement: Sequels work best when they raise expectations to unrealistic degrees, making the third film an inevitable stinkbomb.
Avatar (2009)
I donât go to see 3D films. Iâm less worried about the damage to the eyes or the high cost of tickets and more frightened that itâs all a ruse to take pictures of an audience full of idiots sitting in the dark and watching a $12 movie while wearing sunglasses. Has the wonder of 3D ever lasted past the 20-minute mark? I wouldnât know. Thankfully, Titanic auteur James Cameron squeezed every drop of wonder out of this film in the script stage. A paralyzed Kevin Costner finds a tribe of very tall Smurfs and becomes one of them, and though heâs pulled by conflicting loyalties for a solid three minutes of screen time, he sides with the primitive but lovable Land Gungans and Wesa all happy by the end of this tired yarn. Cameron thought about removing all the people in this one, they didnât quite look real next to the CGI animation, but he remembered the last time a director did that they called it Transformers, and the critics burned it to send it to hell. This one was a bigger success, despite its lack of sinking ships and a dastardly lifeboat-stealing Billy Zane. Spoiler alert: Everybody wins and is happy in the end. Oops, gave away the ending.
Inception (2010)
Based on the novel Huh? by WTF. Batmastermind Christopher Nolan takes on the world of dreams in a fast-paced mind-blowing adventure epic that wowed critics and audiences alike. The only problem is it seems Nolan has never had a dream and never bothered to write a plot anyone could understand. What might have been a daring, big-budget exploration of dreamscapes and the psyche boils down to a bunch of car chases and people getting shot. I have always prided myself on telling when the Emperor has no clothes, and this oneâs sack is dangling in the wind, people. Dreams are not as depicted in the movie, these vast landscapes where youâre chased by organized subconscious thoughts and doing gravity-free Kung Fu on other badasses. If Nolan had been honest, the plot would have been Di Caprio driving a Hyundai around inside a Home Depot looking for a place thatâs open to buy French fries, and then they stop at a P.F. Chiangâs, which doesnât normally serve French fries but for some reason they have them, only the French fries turn into hush puppies halfway through eating them, and Avery Brooks is a sukiyaki chef, then before heâs finished cooking Di Caprio finds theyâre all on Deep Space 9 and the Crest Cavity Creeps are attacking. Then he wakes up. That would have gotten you the Oscar, Mr. Nolan, instead of losing to some stuttering fey king.
Those were the biggest moneymakers since I last wrote. Donât blame me, Americaâblame yourselves. If you donât apologize before I write again, I may decide to take on your Oscar winners. I dare you to give me a shot at Slumdog Millionaire. I dare you.   |
