at Robertson, the American founder of the Christian Coalition who in the past has called for the bombing of the state department and the assassinations of Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein, announced this week that the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, must be assassinated because of his potential to spread Marxism and Muslim extremism across South America.

"These violent religious fanatics cannot be tolerated," Robertson explained, ducking under a salvo of gunfire from supporters of this point of view. "And so God has told me he must be murdered."

"What the fuck?" responded Chávez, when reached in Cuba for his reaction.

In a later interview Chávez theorized that Robertson must be thinking of a different Hugo Chávez, since it he and his entire country are either Roman Catholic or Protestant, and Chávez is a very common name.

"I know for a man like Robertson, the entire non-white world must be very confusing," offered Chávez charitably.

After a week of being shit on by the press, and nearly killed in daily assassination attempts, Robertson announced that the world must have misunderstood his comments, or taken them out of context or something.

"When I said 'the United States of America should assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez,' some people unfortunately misinterpreted this comment to mean I thought the man should be taken out by American covert-ops assassins or something crazy like that," Robertson explained. "This couldn't be further from the truth. Anyone who was really watching The 700 Club that day knows what I really meant: that Jesus loves everybody. End of story."

When confronted with video of the show, Robertson changed his tune, begrudgingly revealing that the episode in question was filmed on the The 700 Club's annual "opposite day."

"You got me! The cat's out of the bag," admitted Robertson. "We were going to have a big contest for viewers and award all kinds of great faith-based prizes for the viewer who could figure out which of our shows had been on opposite day, but not any more. You blew it! Good job, dingus!"

However, this was not the first time Robertson has denied his own remarks in the face of damning VHS evidence.

Last year Robertson claimed that President Bush told him before the invasion of Iraq that there would be no casualties, but that Jesus thought it was going to be messy. This came a few years after the reverend claimed that God allowed 9/11 to happen because the American government allowed abortion and pornography, and because people stopped buying Pat Boone records.

In 2003 came Robertson's infamous 21-day "prayer offensive," when Robertson took a break from being his normal offensive self to beg God to kill three members of the Supreme Court so they could be replaced with justices who would re-criminalize sodomy, thereby ending homosexuality forever.

At the age of five, Robertson organized a kitchen-table meeting to call for the head of his own mother, for the crime of naming him Marion Gordon Robertson, and thereby necessitating the use of a gender-neutral nickname like "Pat" so as to avoid being traded for cigarettes in elementary school. Robertson would later regret not taking on a more masculine fake name, like Bruce, Lance or Barry.

Senator Wins Lottery, Quits "Shitty Job"

the commune's Fall Gadget Guide

Finely Aged Winemaker Ernest Gallo Corked

Failure of Sirius Radio Blamed on "You Can't be Sirius!" Ad Campaign

Somebody just told me the other day that the big thing these days is reality TV. Apparently there's some show where a bunch of idiots are stuck on an island and they have to do goofy things every week to survive. I told that dope that Omar Bricks has been hip to Gilligan's Island for years, but it turns out he was talking about a different show. Just goes to prove the saying that everything old is new again. Except Bob Hope, damn. That guy's so old his odometer rolled over and they're putting single-digit candles on his birthday cake again. If I ever get that old there'd better be some magnificent future world for me to sit around and bitch about, that's all I can say.

I guess the thing now is that everybody's got cameras in their houses and people sit around and watch other families on TV, that's the hot thing right now. When I was a kid they kicked your ass for that kind of thing, but I guess it's all kosher now that it's Alice Cooper's family or whatever on TV. It is kind of funny when he bites the head off of shit at the dinner table, but I still think The Munsters did it better, and first. I don't remember anybody gossiping back then about whether or not Grandpa was going to beat breast cancer, there must've been more going on in the world back then.

People apparently can't get enough of this reality stuff, even if it sucks. Actually especially if it sucks, from what I've heard. These people wouldn't know a good reality show if it snuck up behind them and made them bungee jump naked into a pie tin full of rats. If this isn't a situation screaming for Bricks-style intervention, then neither was last month's slot car racing semifinals.

It's obvious that what the world needs is a dose of true reality, Omar Bricks-level reality. The good shit. So I've taken as my solemn duty to outfit Osaka with Ramrod Hurley's stolen home video camera and gave her specific pantomimed instructions not to let a single morsel of Bricksian reality go untaped from now on. I even got her a shirt from the show COPS so people won't hassle her for filming in casinos or strangers' backyards or other such normally taboo locales.

If these people think Alice Cooper getting a rubber chocolate Easter bunny lodged in his colon is entertaining, they've obviously never seen what an actual real person can do with an air cannon that shoots tennis balls on fire in Amish country.

I'm not sure what we're going to call the show, maybe something clever like "Run, It's the Cops!" with Omar Bricks or maybe The Masked Reality Badass if I anticipate legal hassles. Some dude told me they already have that show and it's called Jackass, which you can guess got him stuffed down a port-a-john like instant magic. If there's one thing I won't tolerate, it's insults disguised as information.

Some might ask how a guy who's never seen a reality show is going to revolutionize the genre, but that kind of thinking is the exact reason you're not a genius yourself. All the hot new shit comes from guys who don't know what the hell they're doing. Just look at the Beatles: Half the time they didn't even have the tape running the right way and Paul held his guitar all retarded and backwards like he'd never seen one before. I hear sometimes they even let the freakin' drummer sing, not exactly a batch of Julliard grads. Mozart himself didn't know thing one about music, how could he? Dude was only five when he died. When I was five, I thought swearing into a kazoo was music. But people back then were sick of all that bullshit harpsichord music and they went ape for some kid dicking around on a piano. And that changed music forever.

By the way, if you happen to see an Omar Bricks-looking dude jogging down your street with a diminutive Asian camerawoman in tow, try to cover up any corporate logos you might be wearing. I don't think we've got the budget for that shit. Thanks.

Bricks out.

º Last Column: Mail Order Bride Monopoly
º more columns

Voluminous volumes have been scribed about the decay of American moral values in the last 30 years. And one can hardly blame the writers. A quick peek through your wrought-iron window grills confirms the truth: it's mean out there. Where once America was nothing but promenade upon promenade of well-dressed and even-better-heeled Americans radiating goodwill and even-better-cheer, now a trip outside is more like American Gladiators week on That Jerry Springer Show.

Pundits have linked our present reality to a swan dive from the values of the Great Generation, though few have had the guts to tell those geezers that every generation calls itself that, even the flappers. And they were about as great as the work ethic on a cocaine farm. But still, sentimentalists pine for the days when Americans were good and the Japs were bad, not the great flip-flop of the 1980's when the opposite was true, or even today, when both Americans and Japanese are merely okay.

Back in the days after World War II things were more black and white, literally. A man stood by his word, unless he was a prick. And yes, there were pricks even back then. There have always been pricks, through the shores of time. There were pricks in the Garden of Eden! Two of them! There was a reason nobody ever came to visit Adam and Eve, you know.

Today, however, everyone is a prick. Even you. Don't argue, it just proves my point further. Gone are the days when strangers lent a helping hand and people called each other "friend." No, we've progressed through "pal," "bub" and "mac" on this increasingly sarcastic train to Pricksville. Now even "Jerk!" is seen as a friendly greeting, better that than "Hey fag-ass, get that piece of shit off the road!" or "Bitch, I said paper AND plastic!"

Back in kinder days, comedy was about making people feel good about themselves, thinking of funny ways to say how smart and good-looking someone was. Today, it's all about tearing down the fragile façade of someone's personality and copulating with their nose-hole in an aggressive fashion. Oh, what a lark.

These days the prevailing ethic is every man for himself, and women had better stay skinny to keep themselves useful. If I don't know you, you can suck on my nuts, greaseball. And God forbid you should drive your car like you own it and didn't just steal it out of a police impound lot. That's grounds for being run off the road in most states.

How did we get here? Was it the sixties? Or the eighties? Was it drugs, violence in the movies or sugar-coated breakfast cereals? Was it sex out of wedlock, on the beach or on a train with a fox? Or was it the Disney Channel? Was it the Three Stooges, or just one of them? Was it rap music, fast food or SUVs? Ooh, that's a good one. I hate those SUVs. They're so hard to park.

In truth, nobody can say exactly what it was that turned us all into card-carrying members of Jerks Anonymous. Maybe there are just too many people on the planet for us to be polite anymore. Too many things to do and places to be, and too many people in the way, driving seventeen miles an hour with the turn signal on. Maybe it was inevitable. But I'd like to think we can do better. Even when the world rubs us the wrong way, we need to rise above and treat all people with dignity and respect.

Unless they "borrowed" a section out of your newspaper without asking. Those people can just fucking die.

º Last Column: Mail Order Bride Monopoly
º more columns