merica awoke this week to find itself trapped in a shitty Groundhog Day nightmare, thanks to a recent AP poll showing that if the election were held today, President Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry would tie, with human Muppet Ralph Nader playing the spoiler once again by garnering 6 percent of the vote. These results were eerily and shittily similar to the 2000 Presidential election, when Bush won despite losing the popular vote, thanks in part to Nader siphoning off liberal voters and Bush’s brother Jeb taking a big, wet crap on the Constitution to ensure his brother would carry the crucial state of Florida.

Within moments of the Associated Press poll results being made public, Americans everywhere were comparing their feelings of nauseating year-2000 déjà vu to the 1993 Harold Ramis film Groundhog Day, in which Bill Murray plays a news weatherman doomed to repeat the same day over and over again until he gets it right. How this phenomenon might be possible for an entire nation on a four-year scale is not yet understood, though faerie magic has yet to be completely disproved. Regardless of the cause, non-Republicans everywhere agree that America needs to make some kind of major soul-searching change to prevent waking up in 2005 to hear “I Got You Babe� playing on clock radios across the country.

“Fuck! FUCK! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!� fumed an epileptically frustrated Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe upon hearing the results of the poll, a replay of the 2000 election searing his brain stem like a cattle brand. Similar sentiments echoed across the nation this week as Democrats and the non-rich envisioned a bizarre replay of the last presidential election, with Gore being swapped out for Democratic nominee John Kerry like some kind of bad Hollywood script for a time-traveling comedy.

“I don’t know if Kerry will be able to pull off what Gore did,� mused confident-sounding political pundit Prance Nancley. “Al Gore could have won that election in his sleep, after all he was running against a Mr. Potato Head doll. But Gore still somehow managed to drop the ball and kick it all the way down the street, allowing so-called adult George W. to sneak into the White House while the door was ajar and Gore was off looking for his ball. I don’t think Kerry has that kind of comedy in him. He is rather dull.�

Still, the possible scenario of an election repeat has haunted more than a few Democrat dreams this week, with Kerry taking the place of Gore as the respectable, though thoroughly boring democratic hopeful who somehow loses to Bush on a technicality, after Florida’s governor declares that blacks don’t have the right to vote in his state any more.

The lone encouraging note in all this is that according to the same AP poll, politics aren’t the only area in which America is trapped in a loop of déjà vu, as the AP cites “current� top-grossing films The Grinch, Cast Away and Mission Impossible 2, and has ‘N Sync, Santana and Eminem topping the album charts, which clearly isn’t true.

Is it?

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MySpace to Offer Breaking News on What Ira Mankovics is Doing Right Now

Alec Baldwin Records Devastating Voice Mail Message for Shooter

Sony’s Poorly Timed “PS3 Price Massacre” Backfires

Exhibit A:
Don Henley's 1984 hit "All She Wants to Do Is Dance"

Alternate-Universe Song Titles:
"The Way," "She's Oblivious to Her Surroundings," or "Bitch Snorted All My Traveler's Cheques Up Her Nose"

Separated at Birth:
Gary US Bonds, "She Just Wants to Dance"

Verdict:
All Don Henley wants to do is teach.

Lyric Sample:
And all she wants to do is dance
and make romance
She can't feel the heat comin' off the street
She wants to party (oooo)
She wants to get down (oooo)
And all she wants to do is-
And all she wants to do is dance


Analysis:
To the listener of average intelligence, and by average I mean low, and by low I mean lower than a hummingbird zipping under a snake's anus, this song's lyrics make not one iota of rational sense. Where does this narrator go for a vacation, Beirut? And who'd he bring with him, Jennifer Beals? Though the close proximity of this album's debut and the release of the Beals epic Flashdance makes this one of a handful of intriguing possibilities, one oughtn't mistake serendipity for kismet in this instance. So then, what? Is dancing just a metaphor for something else in this song's supposititious world? Sex? Drugs? Who is this woman, a hooker? A dope addict? A hooking dope addict? A doping hook ad- you get my point. "Dance" could mean anything in this context, except of course for actual dancing. Because if that were case, then the song would just be stupid. Beefheaded. Duncical. And this is coming from the man who wrote "Take it Easy," so I'm disinclined to take that exegetical leap of faith.

But then, the question lingers. Why the gun-running theme? Did Don Henley get a little too wrapped up in the fact that the only job available to former members of the Eagles in the 80's was writing songs for Eddie Murphy movies? Sad this, if true.

Some believe the song to be written in protest of the U.S. government's involvement with the Contras in Nicaragua, and the dolorous popular American apathy to the government's actions and the plight of those wretched souls sucking up oxygen in the less-fortunate corners of our rondure. Could this hold the song's true meaning? Sure, if you only want to listen to the song on its most obvious, cursory level. If that be your wont, I'm not one to stop you. Assuming I could. You go ahead and have fun with your bubble gum and NASCAR, little soul. For discerning listeners, however, the song has a deeper hidden message.

They're pickin' up the prisoners and puttin' 'em in the pen
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Rebels been rebels since I don't know when
And all she wants to do is dance


It has always seemed to me that this single verse of Henley's effectively serves to sweep away much of the nonsense that passes for "Western Thought," a thought that one is sometimes tempted to feel has always been in fundamental error about almost everything.

Molotov cocktail-the local drink
And all she wants to do is dance, dance, dance
They mix 'em up right in the kitchen sink
And all she wants to do is dance


Leave it to Henley to show us the simple, unvarnished truth about modern life. There are two kinds of people: those able to face the truth and those who prefer comforting illusions. The second group, which is by far the largest, will surely not like this verse at all, for it brings the very unwelcome news that man is merely an accidental product of evolution and that the only thing special about him is an explosive tenor for violence, for he is the Molotov cocktail of the evolutionary broth, hardwired with a destructiveness which will soon lead to his extinction.

Crazy people walkin' round with blood in their eyes
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
Wild-eyed pistol wavers who ain't afraid to die
And all she wants to do is dance


More of the same from the West's answer to Confusious and Mai Bop. Truly a verse to which to listen, ponder, rewind, and relisten. A suppressed masterpiece.

Well, the government bugged the men's room
in the local disco lounge
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
To keep the boys from sellin' all the weapons they could scrounge
And all she wants to do is dance


Readers should be aware that there have been several editions of this verse. In its original form, documented in several early bootleg recordings and Henley's own personal notes, the word "selling" was spelled out in its entirety, with the subtle truncation that would follow in the studio version shifting the crux of this song on its very axis, presumably the result of Henley bowing to lamentable commercial pressures. I've always preferred the purity of the song's original construction and meaning, as I'm sure have others.

But that don't keep the boys from makin' a buck or two
And all she wants to do is dance, dance
They still can sell the army all the drugs that they can do
And all she wants to do is dance


Here Henley pulls off the deft trick of turning around the looking glass, flipping the perspective and making the listener aware that they are, in fact, peering into the unfathomable depths of their own soul. After all, who has never compromised the very pillars of his humanity for a buck or two? We are, in other words, given not only text but context, that living context without some knowledge of which we will never be able to fully appreciate the brilliancies of these lyrics. One is left wondering just who is keeping this masterpiece off the airwaves. And why...?

Well, we barely made the airport for the last plane out
As we taxied down the runway I could hear the people shout
They said, "Don't come back here Yankee!"
But if I ever do- I'll bring more money
'Cause all she wants to do is dance


So puffed up are we with arrogance, so obsessed with the illusion that we are at the tip of a mythical 'evolutionary tree', so proud of our technical achievements (airplanes) and contemptuous of life forms which seem to get along without the aid of technology (non-Americans), it has become almost impossible for the average person to accept the fact that foreigners, far from being wholly other than us, are our fellows. What is required, then, is not knowledge but something far more difficult for us moderns - what is required is a shift of attitude, and a great deal of patience.

Ah, and finally the chorus! That beautiful thing, I can hardly bring myself to discuss the chorus as I've only heard it all too recently and haven't had time to recover my measured poise. Unfortunately I've also just been informed by the commune that I'll be unable to make this column any longer, as it has reportedly clogged their servers and has already run at greater length than some entire previous issues. Ingrateful wombats.

---

Dr. Joyce Pickles, M.D.P.S.T., received her degree in psychology from U.S. Zoological College in Burnt Harbor, Maine. She contributes to the commune from time to time for the perverse, kinky thrill of slumming.

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I don't know why everybody expects me to know everything around here. "Omar, what's your car doing parked in my office?" "Omar, who the fuck hired Menudo to tile the break room?" "Omar, what ever happened to that Japanese woman you had living in your house?" What am I, Google? Get your lazy ass over to the library and look it up yourself, Curious George. AskOmar.com don't run for free and when I charge, I charge in pain.

I have to admit though; the "Japanese woman" question did get me thinking. I seem to remember something like that, some kind of foreign squatter in the Bricks Manor a little while back. At first I thought I must be remembering some lame sitcom, but according to resident prick Orson Welch, The Jap of Luxury went off the air years ago.

I definitely remember the house smelling like soy sauce a lot last year, and a quick peek into the compost heap outside shows strong evidence that there was a lot of chop-sticking going on around here during the same time period. So it certainly looks like this place was all Japped up for a good couple months last year. Weird.

I decided to hit the Internet for a little research, which mostly turned up strange cartoon pornography that's likely going to screw up my Saturday mornings for the next few years. But the most useful info came from the commune itself (no shit, we're on the Internet now) in the form of my own Polio columns from last fall. That was really a trip; I was wondering how in the hell people got to our site. Turns out all you have to do is search for "Japanese cat-piss cornhole" and you're there.

So now with that confusion out of the way, I'm faced with a question: What in the hell happened to my Asian live-in cohort? Jesus, you turn around for nine months and these people disappear on you, it's insane.

The last thing I remember, we were teamed up in this rickshaw polo tournament I had organized for charity. Osaka had been building up some serious skills carting me around town during those carless days, and I was getting pretty sharp at not eating shit out the back on sharp turns, so I figured we should put those skills to use for a good cause. There was some static about a school for training immigrants to pull Omar Bricks around town like a dogsled team not being a real charity, but those whiners were weeded out pretty fast and most of them had some pretty sad sack rickshaw-pullers anyway, to say the least. Mostly scrawny neighborhood kids or hookers trying to get off the street, Osaka and I would have poloed circles around them without either of us breaking a sweat.

In retrospect I wouldn't have minded if those guys stayed on, because the poloers who did stick around were a pretty rough bunch who favored a brand of full-contact rickshaw polo that wasn't for the faint of heart. I really felt sorry for anyone who parked their car on Brown Street that day, that's all you need to know.

In the end nobody there could match the skills Osaka and I brought to the arena, but they didn't need to since we flipped the 'shaw while popping a wheelie on the victory lap after I'd scored our first goal. Needless to say the rickshaw was destroyed, which Osaka probably wasn't too thrilled about since she'd paid for it and I'd talked her into getting one of the nice ones, really the Mercedes-Benz of rickshaws, it had a mini-fridge and a doorbell and everything. After the crash there was rickshaw shit all over the street, a stray dog even made off with the portable DVD player. It was a sad scene, especially for me, because I was right in the middle of Rollerball when it happened. I still don't know how that movie ends.

Come to think of it, I don't remember seeing Osaka after the crash, she may have given up on America or been kidnapped by the Triads for all I know. Hell, she could still be at the bottom of that pile of rickshaw rubble, but I bet they've cleaned that up by now. I probably could have stuck around and found out for sure, but the cops were on their way and we only had about ten minutes to make the half-off beers at Runyon's, so nobody was exactly volunteering to hang around for casualty detail.

It's probably all worked out for the best, unless she died. In that case, Osaka, or whatever your real name was, I'll never forget you. Again. After this time, never again. So I'll only forget you once. Probably, can't promise anything. But if you are still around and have learned to read English by now, Foghat's been sleeping on a pile of your stuff, so if you want it back you'll have to talk to him. Bricks out.

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