Bush Unveils Martyr Prevention Hotline

n the face of wildly escalating violence in Israel and Palestine, political commentators the world over have been looking to American President George W. Bush for a sign as to the path America will take in dealing with the Mideast crisis. After making an early dismissive statement about how at least the Palestinians don't have flight schools, Bush had been conspicuously quiet on the issue. Some observers theorized that the president was carefully weighing America's options before he made a public statement, while others argued that his attentions had been split between a new model train set and the Fox prime-time drama 24. Today's announcement might have proved either side correct.

In a press conference this morning, Bush unveiled plans for a new Office of Martyr Prevention, headed by syndicated radio call-in therapist Dr. Judy Kuriansky and manned by a staff of 300 licensed suicide-prevention professionals who will be available via a toll-free telephone number 24 hours a day.

"I have created the OMP in response to the internationalary outcry for American action to address the Mideast peacelessness," Bush stated. "Suicide bombers are threatening world peace and the time has come to find a solution. These young men and women need to be shown that there are other, better ways to express their anger and frustration than blowing up a Circle K with explosive underpants.The answer is not to perpetuate terroristical attacks of an inhumanitarian nature. I understand that the people of Palestine, and other miserable places I need not mention by name, need a shoulder to cry on. Now they know that America is there for them, over thousands of miles of telephone wires. No need to come here, we'll pick up the phone bill. There's nothing to blow up here that you couldn't blow up back home, anyway. Operators are standing by."

Dr. Judy Kuriansky accepted her appointment with a brief speech on the Mideast situation. "It's time to break the cycle of violence. The time has come for Palestinian youth to understand that the dark, dead pit of bile in their chests is not the bitterness of living in a relocation slum or the dull ache of hunger, nor is it some tiny embryonic Jew implanted in their chests that's gnawing at their internal organs, regardless of what their newspapers tell them. It's the all-too-familiar ache of feelings yearning to be expressed.

"What we need here is communication. Palestine needs to stand up and say to Israel: 'It hurt my feelings when you kicked the snot out of our armed forces back in 1967.' And Israel needs to say to Palestine: 'Hey, asshole, if you hadn't attacked us then you wouldn't have lost all the land you're bitching about now. What's your freakin' problem, anyway?' And Palestine needs to say back to Israel: 'Listen, we never agreed to let you guys move in here in the first place, and now you're trying to force us all to move to Jordan. Fuck Jordan, Jordan sucks.' And then the UN needs to come over and slap them both on the back and say: 'Alright, you're all a bunch of assholes, but we need to do something about this or the rest of the world is going to run out of explosives.' Then the UN can take them both out and get them drunk and hope they have sex together and we end up with a bunch of Jewrab babies so nobody can tell who they're supposed to blow up any more. But my point is that communication is the key."

National reaction to today's announcement has been typically harsh, with many critics pointing out that there aren't any Circle K stores in the Middle East. At press time, OMP staffers had received three phone calls: two wrong numbers looking for Sears AutoCenter and a call from Iowa asking if it was possible to overdose on mini-marshmallows.

Reactions from Palestine have been even less promising, with Hamas leader Zaccaria Walid Akel promising a large cash reward for the family of the first suicide bomber to blow up OMP headquarters.

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I swear to God you break one little hip, slip into a light four-month coma, and the entire world passes you by. It's like you died, nobody bothers to bring you up to date on the lotto numbers or the once-in-a-lifetime cataclysmic events you missed while you had a feeding tube sticking out of your ass like a goddamned ringtail lemur. The Red Sox? The World Series? For that very reason I'm still unconvinced that I didn't die that day, living ever since in some kind of strange Jacob's Ladder hinterworld. The motherloving Red Sox? That gimpy bunch of fruits? I spend the autumn on the rack at Jiffy Lube and the whole world passes me by like I was driving a Prius in the Indy 500.

While I was in my coma, dreaming about soft foods and My Little Pony, I had some vague awareness that I was probably missing some big events out in the so-called "real" world. I knew if I stayed in there long enough, the usual grab bag of celebrities would probably kick off, and I might just miss the Al-Qaeda razing the city of Chicago like it was the Crusades 2. And I was fine with all that. But I'm still pissed off that nobody though to bust out the electroshock paddles when the Sox came back from 3-0 against the Yankees back in October. Trust me, I would have climbed down off my pretty-hair pony and rejoined the waking world to see that, they wouldn't have had to shock-paddle me more than three or four times. No acrid stink of fried chest hair for this guy. We're talking playoff action here.

Back in my day, doctors could recognize a coma for what it was: a hard-earned vacation for people who hate to travel. They didn't mess around with all these expensive EKGs and CAT-scans. They just tossed a spare blanket on you and left a glass of water on the nightstand for when you eventually woke your ass up. And if there wasn't room at the hospital, thanks to a fireworks fight at the coal mine or war breaking out in the Balkans, there was always some nice family out there proud to host a comatose American. Hell, I had a guy comatose on my couch for three months back in '57. I didn't mind it one bit, he kept the nachos warm while I was in the bathroom.

But that world's as far gone as an underground bunker full of Scientologists, readers. Nowadays, it's screw you and your 86-year World Series curse, old man. As long as your family keeps sending the hard sucking candies, we're keeping you in that coma.

My God, the Red Sox. How did this self described bunch of "fucking morons" defeat the mighty-footed Yankee juggernaut? I've seen the footage on Betamax, and I'm still not sure how it happened. The only sane conclusion is that the 2004 Yankees were, to a man, a bunch of pussies. If I were Steinbrenner, I'd be pissed nobody pointed this out to me earlier. I bet next season the Yankees have some kind of public disclosure rule where that kind of stuff gets exposed, possibly over the public address system. "Now batting, Alex Rodriguez: Pussy. Also plays some third base."

Did anybody else see Rodriguez karate-chop that ball like he thought he was Jackie Baseball Chan or something? What a pussy. If I saw that in a little league game, I'd be down on the field, bitch-slapping some little kids. The ghost of Babe Ruth needed to pry his fat ass out of the grave for about ten minutes and give that Rodriguez guy a serious murph, and pronto.

Kevin Brown? Another big pussy. Only the Yankees could find a way to spend so much money on a guy whose spine is held together with Polydent. This guy gives the elderly a bad name.

Jeter? He's always been a pussy. You can pull all the carnival bullshit you want, throwing some steroid freak out at the plate with a backward pass like you think you're Magic Johnson, but… actually, there's no "but" involved, that alone makes you a pretty big pussy. I've slapped little leaguers for more manly pranks than that.

Mussina? Pussina. That guy belongs in an elementary school library, checking book margins for nude doodles of Minnie Mouse. Matsui? Japanese Baseball Robot. Not a pussy, but not very convincing either. They might have pulled that one over on us if it weren't for all the sponsorship logos printed on his teeth. Bernie Williams? You ever see that cartoon aardvark Arthur? Same guy. Both pussies. And a name like Georgie Posada speaks for itself.

Few would call Gary Sheffield a pussy, but you've got to look at the company a man keeps. Something's not right with this guy. Plus Sheffield swings harder on a bunt than Jack Nicholson saying hello to Scatman Crothers. And they want to know how he ended up with rancid hamburger for a shoulder by the end of the season? After the Twins game when he tried to catch that fly ball in his mouth, it dawned on me that the guy's arms are tied on with twine, like a scarecrow. They're just for looks kids.

And don't get me started on the "Cardinals." Anyone with half a memory knows those guys were the "other" team from the Bad News Bears movies, all growed up. I don't know what they did with the real Cardinals to make sure the Red Sox Cinderella story came true, but Guantanamo Bay is the first place I'd look.

Anyway, bitter rant aside, it's good to be back among the conscious. Thanks for calling, if any of you called. Sorry I wasn't able to answer the phone: coma and everything. But I'm sure subconsciously it meant something to me, on some kind of psychic Caller-ID level. But the next time I get jumped for slapping little-leaguers, I expect a marked improvement in coma management, people. Good day.

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Omar Bricks is in favor of legalizing all drugs, if for no other reason than it would be hilarious to see what kind of cover Kraft would put on a box of Smackaroni & Cheez. My vote is for some dumbass-looking dinosaur that's all slouched over, nodding off in front of a TV that's playing The Jetsons. That would be some hilarious irony, because what in the hell is a dinosaur doing watching The Jetsons? That shit's futuristic even for us, but for him it's like double-futuristic, it's just absurd. If I were a dinosaur I'd just fart at that kind of absurdity, it'd be too much to handle.

Mark my words, we wouldn't have to be give all these spazzy little grade school kids prescription speed if they were getting smack on crackers in their Naked Lunchables. None of those hyper little dipshits would be acting up at all, throwing scissors or singing the "diarrhea song," any of that, they'd be too busy nodding off and staring at their shoes. And I bet they'd be better at art class, too. Give those little junkies some fingerpaints and cake decorations and I bet you could sell that shit at the art fair, or at least in a head shop or something.

It would also be worth it just to see what kind of commercials they came up with for the hard-core drugs, like crack. I can just see some stressed out housewife dragging around a minivan full of screaming little shitheads, and then she gets a flat tire, then some fat hobo guy barfs on her blouse, and then it's freeze frame and she turns to the camera and says "F-this, I'm smokin' some crack!" They show her lighting up and enjoying some Entenmanns's brand crack or whatever while her kids play with the spare tire by the side of the road, and there's some tiny superimposed type about how you may experience a side effect where you become a crack whore and blow a donkey, etc.

Most of the drugs would probably go the beer commercial route, showing some goateed slob getting all the skanky ladies because he's got the good blow. They'd probably have to get creative since I don't think they can show harmonica-style blowjobs on network TV, but I'm sure you can imply it pretty easy. A little dark makeup around the eyes would probably do it; everybody knows what a coke whore looks like.

I'm not even sure who would get the rights to sell blow, though of course Coke is the obvious choice. They could do some of those classic blind taste-test commercials, with some guy doing a line of coke and then a line of Draino, and as he's flopping around on the floor like a fish he gestures that he preferred the coke. I don't know about the rest of America, but I think that would be more than enough to convince Omar Bricks that coke is it.

I hear Kraft's trying to get out of the junk food business, so I think they'd be a natural to take over the junk business. Nobody's going to bitch about them making America fat anymore if all of their products make you think your food is yelling at you. I can just see their commercials marking the transition, like some guy gets busted at customs and the dude with the rubber gloves pulls a sack of Oreos out of his ass. Ha ha. Then, of course, the stuffy English customs dude shrugs at the camera and pops one in his mouth, that's the punchline. They may regret having told me that "Double Stuff It Up Your Ass" wasn't a catchy slogan when that day comes around.

The rest of the drugs would fall into line easily enough. Big Tobacco would of course get pot, and they'd find a way to make it addictive. Gatorade could handle angel dust, unless Powerade or Red Bull shivved Gatorade in the corporate shower and took over their territory. And we'd have to give Schweppes control of some bullshit drug, like ether, so they wouldn't get a whiney about the U.S. having a narcotics monopoly.

Hmm, Narcotics Monopoly! Damn! Don't look now, but Omar Bricks is getting an idea that could revolutionize the board game industry forever. Somebody get Parker Brothers on the phone, they need to file a patent for Roofie Twister, and pronto.

Bricks out.

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