sing state of the art poll-tracking technology, the commune has been able to predict this year’s presidential election winner two days early with a probably 98.77439% accuracy, and the result may shock or disinterest you. That’s right; Al Gore will be our nation’s 44th president.

Though Gore has not been a frontrunner in most of the supposedly-reputable national polls heading into the election’s final week, a highly scientific sampling of unregistered voters within a two-block radius of the commune offices has confirmed the reports of future correspondent Future Bob, who recently contacted the commune from the year 2006 with the news that Gore is president and that pop music had gotten really, really shitty. Also: buy stock in flavored condoms now.

Though it is unclear as of yet whether the Gore win will be the result of an unexpected groundswell of support in the election’s final days, or the emergence of thousands of 2000 absentee ballots from Post Office limbo hell, one thing is unmistakably clear. More on that later.

Perhaps even more surprising than the Gore win was the news that both presidential incumbent George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry finished well out of the money in the general election, trailing such surprise write-in candidates as The Rebel Billionaire, J.R. Ewing, and “that black guy from 24.� Also receiving strong shows of support were Candidate Zero from the NetZero Internet Service commercials, baseball commissioner Bud Selig, and the soothing, dignified voice of actor James Earl Jones.

Though the point may be moot due to the tenth-place showing of Jones’ voice, it is unclear whether the entire personage of James Earl Jones would have been inaugurated had the actor’s voice won, or if Jones would have had to stay out of sight while his voice was electronically matched, Wizard of Oz-style, to a projected image of either Darth Vader, the dad lion from The Lion King, or some kind of CGI morph of the two.

The revolutionary new poll, devised by the commune’s in-house expert expert Griswald Dreck using the latest Polish technology, also revealed some surprising news about America’s political affiliations. Long-though to be a nation composed almost equally of Democrats and Republicans, this latest poll shows a surprising 74% of citizens who list their party as “Yes!� Another 10% belong to the hard-line “Fuck Yeah!� Party, with a small but vocal minority standing behind their “Not Since We Had Kids� Party affiliation. Also of concern to the current establishment are the upstart “Where?� and “Can I Bring My Brother Dave?� Parties, which appeared to grow in size exponentially between our 10am and 4pm polls.

The demographic splits were even more surprising, with over 80% of likely white trash voters believing that gun control means using both hands. And in a minor note, a surprising 82% of Americans believe Gore is our current president, and are happy enough with the job he’s done to vote for a second term.

In other political news, 65% of likely voters expressed their strong opinion that commune reporter Lil Duncan belongs in the “Hot� category, while teen correspondent Boner Cunningham led the “Not� voting with a skyscraping 92%. Though disheartened by the news, Cunningham informed the commune that he hopes to do better in the upcoming 2008 election, by which time he expects his mustache to have fully grown in.

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Omar Bricks here, writing to you from the seventh ring of hell, or as it is known in mapese, Nashville. How'd I get here? What am I doing here? All fair questions. If you come up with any plausible answers, let me know.

It all started, if these kinds of things can ever be attributed to simple cause and effect, with a 12-hour repeat listening of the Eddie Rabbit tune "Driving My Life Away." This was caused, I assure you, not by conscious choice but rather Foghat putting the CD player on one-track repeat when he was listening to the new Counting Crows album the other day and I'll be damned if I know how to switch the thing back. By the way, I won't be held responsible for my dog's taste in music. As long as he limits his crap-listening to the hours when I'm not at home, well, that's his own deal with the devil and not my problem. Most people that visit Bricks Manor are impressed enough that my basset hound knows how to operate the CD player at all, but after I have Foghat make everyone omelets they usually forget about how impressed they'd been by the whole CD thing. Because they're too busy throwing up half-cooked omelets.

To be perfectly honest, I was so wrapped up in working on the development of my latest invention, a pneumatic fly-stunning air cannon, that I didn't even realize the song was on repeat for the first six hours or so. And by then my body rhythms had so completely melded with the song that I couldn't very well shut it off without risking serious epilepsy, so I rode it out until I fell asleep on the floor in a pile of freshly unwashed laundry. When I woke up, the song was still playing, but I don't count those hours in my total even though it thoroughly infiltrated my usual Driving Miss Daisy-themed dreams.

Before you start asking why in the hell I put that song on in the first place, let me explain that it's the only halfway decent track on the disc. The rest is all Bulgarian folk music and European techno, which is every bit as shitty as it sounds. The CD itself came in a Discman I bought for seven dollars at the Salvation Army, I didn't realize there was a disc inside until I got home. Even before this all came up the Discman purchase was revealed as a mistake, since I'd envisioned Foghat using it to listen to his shitty musical tastes in a way that didn't crawl up my own ass like a hungry banana slug. But if you've figured out a way to get a dog to wear headphones, you're handier with a roll of duct tape than Omar Bricks, that's all I can say about that.

Anyway, the song repeated for another hour straight after I woke up, by which time I couldn't even hear it any more, it had so completely rewired my internal landscape. But then the CD started skipping, probably the disc glues coming apart after so many hours of constant spinning, and the skipping music was causing Foghat to freak out, running around and pissing on everything at a slightly higher rate than he normally does. I had to get the disc out of the player with the toilet plunger, though from the way Foghat looked at me there was probably an easier way, maybe a button on the CD player or something. I don't pretend to have a PHD in consumer electronics.

At first it was a relief that the music had stopped, but then I started to feel my insides twist around like two snakes at an orgy, and I began to feel an irresistible compulsion to drive my life away. It was sort of like that scene in Naked Gun where Reggie Jackson gets hypnotized and runs around shooting everybody with a machine gun, yelling "Say hello to my little friend!" It was like my brain wasn't my own, I was just holding onto it while a buddy was in the can. Before I knew it I was behind the wheel and out on the open road, with Foghat riding shotgun. Then I put the shotgun in the back seat because I'll be damned if that dog hasn't been freaking me out with his marksmanship as of late.

All was well out on the open road, except for the fact that I didn't have any Eddie Rabbit tapes in the car, and none of the Mexican oompa-oompa tapes that came with my car were scratching that itch. This distracted me so much I didn't even realize I was driving to Nashville. I'd had some vague visions of Vegas in my head, maybe the sunset strip or Baja California... in all honesty it wasn't that well-planned of an excursion, but I think Nashville is too harsh a punishment for such minor indiscretions.

Everything you've heard about this place is true: it's full of rednecks, everybody moves slower than Ed McMahon getting up off the couch, and everyone's got real shit taste in music. Not to mention the high asshole-to-Bricks ratio. When I cruised the Bricksmobile IV through the pedestrian entrance at the CMA Music Festival, you wouldn't believe the number of assholes who were yelling at me to turn down the Mexican polka tunes. Look, Slocum, you think I'd be listening to this shit if I could get it out of the tape deck? I left the toilet plunger at home and I don't trust Foghat with that shotgun after he tried to use it to open a can of Kibbles 'n Bits back in West Virginia. Don't hate a player just because you weren't smart enough to get around the cover charge, Hoss. You'll get yours when I get behind the microphone on the main stage. Bricks out.

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Good people, I'm experiencing the most unusual feeling of my entire life. You might call it respect. In fact, I believe that's what it is called, I've made a study of it over the years and I'm 99.9% sure. But it's new to me, and I must say, I like it.

No doubt you believe I've lived with respect every day of my life, but good people, in the interest of telling the truth, I have an admission: I've never been a well-respected man. I know I carry on loudly and speak with conviction like a man rolling in oodles of respect, but it's all been a charade. A big, gay-sounding charade. I've usually been the butt of other people's jokes and nothing but a big joke to those I know, all my life, and it's time I admitted it. Why now? Well, because now I'm getting respect, of course!

As many people will agree, joining the mob was the best thing that ever happened to me. I get 10% off on all my Amoco fill-ups and the organization pays for all my suits. And, it's a subtler difference to most, but people look at me in a new way wherever I go. Except for here at the commune or inside the confines of my own home. But on the way to work or home again, respect! R-E-S-P-E-C-T. You tell 'em, Aretha. I'm feeling you now.

I've always been one to live a humble life, though not by choice, of course. I never knew I had any alternatives. And until putting a hurtin' on Boguslaw Sadowski last week, I didn't. But my fresh new position as mob lieutenant has brought me something I never thought obtainable, and I'm not just talking about a well-fitting suit. People on the street look up to me, even as they're looking down. Store merchants give me "tabs" now, and ask for my help in influencing the mob. Children run up to me and ask if they can do me any favors, instead of knocking me down and stealing my shoes as in the old pre-mob days. And little old ladies remark how nicely dressed and threatening I look. It's an amazing change when just two weeks ago they didn't know my name, and called me "the gargoyle" behind my back.

Of course, there is a downside to joining the mob. The risk of long-term prison sentencing and the morally taxing life of brutal murder and extortion. And frankly, I can tell you, good people, but I've never been much for Italian food myself. It's a superfluous complaint, given my mob is more Eastern European in origin, but if I ever get into some kind of mob exchange program I'm afraid it will be something I have to confront. But when people tell you crime doesn't pay, don't believe it. I have achieved a golden new era of respect thanks to my newfound criminal cohorts. Unless, of course, you are a young and impressionable child who happens to enjoy reading my column. In that case, crime never pays! And drugs are for dopes.

All this is not to say I have given myself over to the mob without reservations. I called far in advance. Forgive my little joke, it's mob humor. All the mobsters really do laugh when I make jokes now. Another little nice addendum to my newfound respect. But there is a nugget of truth in that pearl, and I am still not convinced a life of crime is meant for me. Sure, it's fine if you're a criminal, or aspiring gangsta rapper. But I'm too straight and narrow for these clothes to fit too well for too long.

I lament the day I ever married Felchyana against her will. After all, if you live far enough in denial, this is all her fault, in a way. Still, I don't blame her, or maybe just slightly, and realize Rok Finger got himself into this, Rok Finger will have to get himself out. With Camembert. I'll make Camembert help.

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