acists and peckerwoods everywhere trembled as their vaunted white power fizzled out into nothingness Thursday, surprising only those blind to the inevitable fall of empires everywhere. The absurdly-called "blackout," which started in the middle of the day during perfect daylight, plunged major northeastern urban areas into a state of non-electricity, which the white media presumably prefers to compare to "primitive" black culture with the derogatory "blackout" term.

The twin Northern American albino evils, the governments of the U.S. and Canada, both spent the day blaming each other for the power failure instead of spending their time fixing the power. The working classes and underprivileged were left in the dark Thursday night, with Friday night also no luckier in getting the power turned back on in some areas. White media was "delightfully surprised" that the non-white citizens left in the dark during the night didn't spend all their time looting their own stores and robbing white people—you know, acting civilized. As you know, when non-whites rob white people, it's anti-social crime; when whites rob everyone else, it's called capitalism.

New York City mayor Whitey Whiteberg praised New Yorkers for helping each other out and not killing each other like savage animals, then went home to his out-of-state mansion or high-grade penthouse with the gasoline-powered generator or whatever digs he shammed the people out of. Meanwhile, underprivileged suffering classes in Detroit went home to unbearable heat without power Friday night. Areas of New York, Connecticut, and Ohio with their power restored were forced to refrain from air conditioning in the record heat wave.

Rumors abounded in the immediate wake of the power failures. Though the most likely source of the catastrophe is now pointing to three failed transmission lines that eventually took out the Niagara Mohawk power grid, probably stolen from early industrious Native Americans, alternative unfounded causes were spread through the Internet and urban legend grapevine. Some blamed the power outage on a threatening Internet worm that managed to topple all the nation's power grids, the equivalent of blaming it on the Candyman. Most Americans were more anxious to blame it on the brown people of the Middle East, known as terrorists for not believing in the white man's God.

President and ranking redneck George "Whitey" Bush promised the problem of the electrical outage would be investigated and, if possible, enslaved and oppressed. He went on to call the electrical power grid system "antiquated," though how that makes it different from other revered elements of white culture wasn't explained by the inferior president.

Professor of African-American Electrical Engineering and frequent drinking buddy of this reporter Muhammad Bari offered more realistic interpretations of the grid power failure.

"It's clear the fatted citizens of Rome have trusted in their failing empire far too long," said the six-time winner of home Jeopardy! "The sacred calf is ripe for slaughter, and the time for the reign of a noble citizenry is nearly upon us. Now, I'm not suggesting we go out and rip down Con Edison and the White House or anything, you know. I'm just saying, in the eyes of the great and worthy Allah, we as wage slaves built this city on rock and roll and it's ours to do with as we please."

The white president refused to comment on these perfectly legitimate questions, proving who he's really serving.

Chief Justice Rehnquist: Dead as Disco at 80

Kansas City Royals Win Little League World Series

Oasis, Killers Combine Forces to Ruin Sgt. Pepper’s for Everyone

Global Warming Poses Threat to National Parks, Says WWF’s “Machoman” Savage

The tale of how I escaped the angry mobs of Haitian dissidents is the most chilling, exciting, and inspiring story that has ever happened to me. Consequently, I sold the rights to it so it could be made into a Hallmark movie (look for it on CBS this Fall, with James Woods as the handsome Rok Finger-type character). This means I can't tell you about it, but don't worry, I have a number of stories almost as amazing. Have I told you how I started the Atkins diet this week?

It's part of my effort to rebuild my life now that I'm back on steady shore and have forsaken my pirate ways. No doubt anyone would miss the charming shanty of the sea, but I believe I'm better off—some are meant to sail the sea and poach whales or whatever else there is to do out there, while others of us are landlubbers. And I lub land. I was meant to wear stifling three-piece suits, grease my hair with my own homemade pomade, and live in tract housing. No sense in defying your true calling.

It's been a difficult transition, no doubt, but made easier by the boost from the friendly Hallmark people. I've bought my own home in the West Hills neighborhood of New Jersey, not more than a stone's throw from the commune offices—in fact, this morning I hit Raoul Dunkin from my bathroom window. It's a lovely neighborhood, full of friendly and successful people, the kind of neighborhood that usually gathers together to sign a petition keeping me out. But in this case they were slow and I benefit from it.

Back to the old routine, the kind of life Rok Finger was meant to live. I get up, eat breakfast, read the morning paper, make tomorrow's breakfast, and drive to work to get a full day's job done making up column ideas. It's such a natural fit I don't even know why I ever left. Which is not an exaggeration, I have completely blanked on the original reason I left the country. I'm not even sure where I went—Angola? They had accents but spoke English. I seem to remember having a wife, but the specifics escape me.

Don't worry about my companionship, though—as always, in tow with me is good friend Camembert. But he's only towing me until my sprained ankle heals. Those violent political revolutions can be hell on the joints. It's just as well I need his assistance, because now I'm in a position to finally pay back all the friendship Camembert has shown me over the years, allowing him a room in my new house. He repeatedly told me he was content to return to his old apartment, but since the mob torched it in our absence, it's not quite as nice as it once was. It's all for the better—two better roommates you could never find! Camembert and I have never even had an argument. I tell him what to do and he does it, no argument.

Not that we don't have some minor problems. He complains the house is not handicapped accessible, but I say as long as you have a window the house is accessible. Camembert's requested I put in a ramp somewhere, either that or move his bedroom down to the first floor, and I suppose I might throw him a bone on one of those requests. A ramp would be a lot of fun to ride that chair down, if you put it at the right angle. I might even be able to put a loop in it, as the rollercoasters do, as a nice surprise.

Some might call this new old life of mine boring—well, I say shut-up. In a pleasant, smiling sort of way. I welcome the safe, the secure, the familiar. At least until something better than the dead-end suburban existence comes along.

º Last Column: Rok the Boat
º more columns

Lately it seems like every-damned-body has been asking me what I'll be doing for Christmas, as if I'm going to say that I'll be attending a Roman Orgy and then invite them along, or that I'm going to slip up and say that I'm taking my doped-up sex zombie out of the closet to beat him with a big rubber tit or something. Then they can act all offended and then say they're not surprised and knew what I was up to all along. I know their game, the bastards. I don't know what gets into people around the holidays, you'd think the eminent threat of an Amtrak train slamming through their living room while they're right in the middle of watching "Furby Christmas Feast" would be plenty of excitement for them, but you'd be surprised. Most still have interest left over to get all up in my shit on a regular basis.

So before I start catching any nosy pricks going through my desk drawers looking for a turkey baster full of heroin, I'm going to set the record straight: I plan on spending this Christmas holed up at the Bricks estate, wrapped around a jug of Mike's Hard Eggnog and watching the Benny Hill marathon with my trusty basset hound, Foghat. And before you start ripping on Benny Hill, know that Foghat doesn't take kindly to such thick-headed slander, and the last fool to attempt such a breech of etiquette discovered later that the "Gravy Train" had made an unscheduled stop in his pennyloafers that night, if you follow my colloquial English here.

Now, I'm sure that the few of you who aren't asking yourselves why you don't own such a top-drawer canine are just itching your britches to ask why I'm spending the holidays alone this year, why I'm not nestled in the heart and hearth of friends and family and all that Hallmark shit. Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm still recovering from last year's Christmas debacle, when I spent the holidays with my friend Jeff who was visiting from Tampa and it damn-near turned me into a Buddhist, or some kind of non-Christmasing religious pain in the ass anyway.

Jeff and I go way back, we met during a spontaneous after-bar barfing contest back in college. We became fast friends after Jeff heaved one on a Hell's Angel and we had to dive into the back of a taxi to get away. It turned out that it wasn't even a taxi, just some dude with a yellow car, and I was in the middle of calming the guy down and explaining the situation when Jeff bjorked on that guy, too, and we had to jump out of the car in the middle of the expressway. Man, those were the days.

After college Jeff moved to Tampa to start a Ponzi scheme and I didn't hear from him for I don't know how many years. Though I was pretty sure I saw him in a security camera clip on "Bonehead TV", taking a digger on the wet tile coming out of a bathroom stall in Miami. Then, out of nowhere he calls me up last December and says we should get together and do something for the holidays. The next thing I knew he was on a plane.

Now, just for old time's sake, I played a little joke on Jeff and sent a bunch of guys dressed up like Klansman to pick him up at the airport. Bad idea. I don't know if he'd already paid for an airport shuttle or what, but he was in a seriously bitchy mood when he got to my house. There was a quick remedy for that at the bottom of a case of Safeway's cheapest beer though, and before long we were having a Christmas Eve for the ages.

In no time at all the hard liquor was out, Benny Hill was on the television and there was a roaring fire in the fireplace. We were all drunker than a couple of southern cops on a Saturday night, except for Foghat, who was lost in a world of Benny Hill's slapstick antics.

At some point in the night I asked Jeff what he'd been up to. I mentioned that whenever I'd asked around about him, I'd heard alternately that he was married to an entire tribe down in Peru or Ecuador or some shit, that he'd taken over the role of Birdie in the McDonaldland commercials, and that he was a door-to-door breast pump salesman in the Midwest. In response, he just stood up, dropped his pants and cut loose with a torrential stream of urine into the fireplace. I'm not sure quite what this meant, probably that they were all true, but before I got a chance to ask for clarification the flames leapt up Jeff's pee-stream and he flew about half-way across the room, screaming like a gopher running from a riding mower. Now opinions may differ on the subject, but I thought it was about the funniest thing that had ever happened in the Bricks living room, but then again it wasn't my Ballpark Frank that was getting plumped.

Before I could think to offer him an icepack or something, or even stop laughing myself, Jeff bolted out the door and into the wintry night, half-naked and still smoking. And I'll be damned if I ever saw that crazy fucker again. I doubt that anyone in my neighborhood will forget that night any time soon. Some say that on certain dark and quiet winter nights, you can still hear his woman-like shriek in the wind.

Personally, I'm getting low on old friends to blow up, so this Christmas Eve it'll just be me and Foghat basking in the warm glow of the television, turned up just loud enough to drown out the shrieking of the wind. Bricks out.

º Last Column: Your Honor, the Whole Damn Vending Machine in the Hall is Out of Order
º more columns