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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Good people, you've caught me on a bad day. I'm going out of my well-confined mind trying to write my memoirs.

As I may have mentioned before, but certainly didn't, I have been approached by publishers in the past on the occasions I have stormed into their offices and demanded they print my columns. They have found my columns unsuitable for publication—certainly it's a good thing that they do not run the commune—but they have said, after hearing me rant for a while, "You are quite a character, Mr. Finger. Have you ever considered writing an autobiography."

Yes, I have, since they said something about it. So I immediately went home and started writing the story of my life. Unfortunately, there are huge gaps where I don't remember anything at all, like childhood, and last Wednesday. My memoirs have been stopped right out of the gate.

Presidents are lucky. Like actors and other people of importance, people write biographies about them for them. Plus, their entire public life is captured on videotape or through snapshots. Ol' Rok Finger has to rely on memory and the accounts of friends or co-workers. And memory is even less reliable than friends and co-workers.

For instance, I had a great memory about the time I spent in a German prison during World War II, where I became the leader of an escape attempt of 200 men at once. It was an incredible venture, which I recalled in vivid detail and had all the tragedy, action, and fulfillment of a Hollywood film. Then smartass Camembert told me that it was a film, and according to his Aunt Arvelyn, my ex-wife, I had spent the duration of World War II attempting to build a wooden submarine to help in the war effort. I didn't remember much about that, except for I could never get the thing to quit taking on water. Which is a damn shame, because that might have made a decent chapter or something in my memoirs. Instead it doesn't even make up for losing that fantastic story about the prison camp, that could have made two or three chapters at least, maybe even the whole book. I'm still considering throwing it in, if I'm able to disguise it sufficiently.

So I'm stuck with bits and pieces of my own life to try to sew together in some sort of suitable book. My commune columns are no help at all. Have you ever noticed I tend to ramble on about the most insignificant thing? The minor hassles and ridiculous opinions I hold, ranting and raving as if any of it mattered. I've never read my own stuff before and I can't say I'm chomping at the bit to read it again soon. If it's your taste, fine, have at it. But either way there's nothing I can use for my book among that pile of tripe.

I've gotten so desperate lately that I'm even considering going out and doing something exciting, like hang gliding, or starting a riot. It's too bad I waited until so late in life to get the idea to do something exciting to write about. But then again, since I remember so little I may have been the first man to walk on the moon. It would certainly explain the painful fallen arches in my feet.

I've gotten a little more help from my co-workers and family. Omar Bricks pointed out that my face indicates I've been in some sort of train wreck or something, but without more details I can't put that in the book. Ramon Nootles says I have the walk of someone who's done a lot of experimenting and swinging from the other side of the plate, but I don't remember a scholarly background or a life as a baseball player at all. Camembert remarked once I could've been a stand-in for Napoleon, but I've calculated there's little way I could be that old—thanks for nothing Camembert.

My last chance is to make peace with Arvelyn at some point and get her to help me on my memoirs. She used to remember things expertly; there are some things from twenty years ago in our marriage she wouldn't let me forget, like the year we followed the Grateful Dead, mostly for tax shelter purposes. But I'm afraid a reconciliation seems a long way away at this point, even on friendly terms. So my autobiography will have to wait. Which is fine. Life can only get more exciting in the meantime.

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I knew one of these seasons it would happen, and that day is finally here: Every team in Major League Baseball stinks this year. Just plain stinks, every last one of them. Sure, somebody still has to win every game, but this year it's less about winning and more about not losing quite as badly as the other team. And I don't have to tell you it's as painful to watch as the rodeo at the Special Olympics.

Granted, some fans see fit to remind me that it's still early in the season, and that for at least a few teams, early suckocity will be transformed into mere mediocrity by season's end. But I don't buy it. Suck is a stink that stays on you for months, if not years, like gas station cologne. And this year, the entire league stinks like "Consternation for Men."

The bitterest part of this pill is the fact that at least a couple of these teams were supposed to be half-way decent this year. The Red Sox just won the World Series, for crying out loud, giving their fans unprecedented high hopes about not having their whole miserable lives remind them of smoking a turd like a cigar for a few short months this season. So naturally, they turned around and "re-vamped" their pitching staff by signing one guy most known for a goatee that looks like a thatched doormat and another so old and out of shape that he recently went on the disabled list with a pulled finger. And the Sox had to fire their team doctor after learning that Curt Shilling made it through last year's postseason on an ankle held together with glitter glue and spunk. Gross, I know, and I didn't even tell you whose spunk it was.

But truly nobody can statutorily rape high hopes like the New York Yankees. Fielding a team so expensive and inept it should qualify as a socialist government program, the Yankees seem determined to prove just how much caviar a drunk can barf up on the national stage this year. Some see this as the inevitable result of the team's policy about not signing any players who are too young to remember M.A.S.H., but personally I'm more likely to blame it on the fact that the team's run by a character from Seinfeld. Learn your history, folks. That never ends well.

Who else is sucking? Take your pick. The Cubs? Like you needed to ask about the Cubs. That team could field an entire roster of Jesus Christ clones and still find a way to have the whole lot of them go down with sandal splints and blown elbows from high blessing counts and excessive water-to-wine conversions. They've got the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all on the 60-day disabled list, and I don't think the Holy Ghost will even be back for next season.

Houston's entire team has been too focused on the Social Security debate to keep their minds on the game at all this season, and San Francisco has been crippled by the fact that they traded the best closer in the game for a catcher who could get kicked out of the Hell's Angels for being an asshole. Also, they just got news that doctors found a Fraggle living in Bonds' left knee. I don't know what that says about the whole steroid debate, but those designer Jim Henson Mupplements he's been taking are starting to look mighty suspicious.

Washington? The joke this year is that they gave Washington a team, but haven't given them any equipment yet. Still, those guys are doing pretty well considering they've been using milk cartons for gloves and are playing in their street clothes. Minnesota fell for the old "The season starts on May 1st" gag again this year, so they're already twenty games back, with some serious catching up to do. Atlanta? Fags. Sorry, but they are a bunch of fags. Read the team's press kit if you don't believe me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sure, a few teams may have decent records so far, but don't kid yourself. The Dodgers? The White Sox? Check the records a little closer guys, it wouldn't surprise me if at least one of those teams was being run like Enron and is just writing off dozens of losses as "extended spring training" or some other dodge. You'll know I'm right if they're still 16-6 in August.

But contrary to what some may assume, you won't hear me complaining about the state of things. Not more than usual anyway. I actually kind of like it when teams suck major egg, as a fan it gives you more to talk about. Blathering on about who's pitching great or who just hit a home run so far it killed a hang glider gets real old, real fast. But the details of pathetic performance can be dissected on into infinity with no loss of enjoyment. Just ask a Cubs fan.

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