Over 200 Heretics Arrested in New York City Protest

arring factions in the corporeal world clashed Thursday as police arrested 215 blasphemers expressing anti-American sentiments. More than 150 were hosting a "die-in" where they laid down in the street and did a poor impression of dead Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops, while the mathematical remainder of those 215 were melodramatically hosting a funeral procession. All of it was quite a disgusting site to those who like their country, as well as those who found their caricature of the dead highly offensive.

The incident was one of many that seemed to accelerate since the start of the war, the whateverth of March, 2003. Despite support of biblical proportions from the American public that accompanies the inception of every war, small cells of protestors have continued heresy in cities around the country. Over 200,000 deviants have been arrested everywhere from San Francisco to New York City, though primarily San Francisco, for their refusal to accept the edicts handed down by the administration.

"Protesting before the war was one thing. But now that it has started, it's important to get behind our president and give up their own opinions for the sake of showing the world a unified front," said this reporter. "Back in my day, it was more important to believe your president was doing the right thing than to risk possibly thinking he might not have a clue what he was doing."

Across the country, other groups of pro-Bush protestors protested the protestors protesting the Iraq War. As obligatorily mentioned in every article on anti-war sentiment, protestors of administration actions have been met with equally vehement gatherings rallying to support U.S. involvement in Iraq.

"I just think that the president wouldn't go to war if there wasn't a good reason," said stay-at-home mom twelve-year-old Becky Surrey of Burkutt, Missouri. "That's the kind of thing Saddam Hussein would do. You've heard he gasses his own people, right?"

Demonstrators holding signs saying, "Iraq needs a regime change!" and "Support the troops!" as well as other Bush administration sound bytes, have turned out in, let's just say, record numbers to counter the sacrilege.

"If they love Iraq so much, why don't they move over there and live there and protest?" said Hoyt, Arizona truck loader Darryl Gavin. "Because they'd get killed there. They're lucky to live in a country where they can say whatever they want. So they should shut-up and support the war like the rest of us."

The White House, rather than allowing war efforts to be distracted with arguments, has wisely chosen to ignore protestors in the U.S. and the millions worldwide. Others, however, are quick to step up to the administration's defense.

"The Bush administration has strong evidence Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, and it's a shame that so many Americans are so mistrustful that they demand to see such evidence," said White House publicist Fox News in a released statement. "Everyone is allowed the right to their opinion, but they're wrong."

"Independent" news agency CNN expressed a different view.

"The main thing the United States needs right now is a clear, objective report on the war's impact, both here and abroad," said a broad, some pretty anchor thing. "There are two sides to every story, and it's CNN's responsibility to report that. Are people still protesting the war because they're radicals who hate everything the United States does, or are they simply uninformed? It's important to maintain that balanced perspective."

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At the risk of offending those of you in this world who were attempting to appease Omar Bricks this holiday season, I think it's safe to announce that this Christmas was a bona fide, Class A, Jesus Christ barfing into a French horn wipeout. No car, no immediate future promises of a car, and no surprise celebrity blowjobs to make up for the fact that I didn't get a car for Christmas. If you've ever been kicked in the nuts by a kangaroo, then you know the kind of pain I'm talking about here.

The week before Christmas I started to get the feeling the car thing wasn't going to happen when my cousin called to ask me what size kilt I wear. I told him I can squeeze into a size you'vegottabefuckingkiddingme, at which point he said something about how he'd have to eyeball it then and hung up. Bad omens rarely come so clearly or call collect.

I held out some hope until Christmas Eve, when I left the garage door unlocked in order to facilitate a magical car surprise Christmas morning for any interested parties who might want to sneak a Ferrari in there while I was sleeping. Not that I realistically expected anyone in my family to have that much class, but I figured maybe some drunk would pull up to my house by mistake and leave his keys in the ignition. Could happen. Of course, the down side is then I'd have some drunk sleeping in my garage while I was out Christmas joyriding, but I can't honestly say I'm sure there's not one in there somewhere already. So I figure I'd at least be breaking even on the deal.

Around 2am I thought I heard a would-be Santa out in the garage, but it turned out to just be a family of raccoons eating the paint off my lawnmower. I was tempted to chase the hungry little bastards off with a claw hammer, but since it was Christmas I decided to leave them be so they could go off somewhere to die in peace. I'm not sure how toxic the model paint was that I used to paint the flames on that lawnmower, but there was a picture of Jonestown on the back of the jar so I'm pretty sure that spelled bad news for any forest animals or neighborhood kids who've been teething on those tasty paint chips. All I know is Darwin didn't need to go all the way out to Galapagos to find this kind of natural selection in action.

I went back to sleep and dreamt that George Burns was there shitting sugarplums into my cereal bowl, only they weren't sugarplums. When I woke up it was Christmas morning, but not the kind where you come downstairs to find your heart's desire wrapped up under the tree. No miraculous car in the garage, not even some long-lost depressed relative who'd signed the title before wrapping the exhaust hose around into the driver-side window. No such Christmas magic for Omar Bricks this year.

So I did the rounds, got some socks and a juicer that blows right through socks like they were made out of tissue paper. Not bad. Somebody got me a beer mug that says "Fuck You!" that was pretty nice. Got a deworming kit for Foghat, though frankly I'm not sure if that's a nice precautionary gesture or a subtle hint that my dog has worms. Like I'm the only one who hasn't noticed and my dog's some kind of gnarly science exhibit, ruining family picnics and shit. I'm not even sure how you're supposed to check for that kind of thing, I guess I've always assumed it would be obvious. Like your dog wants to go fishing all the time or something.

Anyway, it was a pretty standard Christmas in the life of Bricks, nothing to be ashamed of. And refreshingly light on death threat Christmas cards this year, really. But I'd be lying if I said my Christmas spirit wasn't thrashing around at the bottom of a lake, wearing cement Reeboks right about now. All because of the Christmas wish too beautiful to come true. But I suppose it could be worse. I could be my neighbor Dale, I hear he's got some dead raccoons he can't find somewhere up in his crawl space that are making his entire house smell like Teddy Roosevelt's bunghole. Yuck.

Bricks out.

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Greetings, commune readers. Rok Finger here, typing greetings to you from beautiful Rumney, New Hampshire. Feel free to register your surprise, disgust, or firearms—whichever is appropriate. It's understandable that based on comments made previously in this column by both yours truly and myself, one might have reasonably expected these words to be coming at you from sunny Memphis, Tennessee. And I'm just skylarking about the sunny part. For as my more astute readers may have guessed—I never went to Tennessee at all.

I was saved from such an embarrassing misstep on my first-ever annual pilgrimage to Graceland by resident commune know-it-all Griswald Dreck, who informed me that the Graceland of Elvis Presley toilet overdose fame and the Graceland of Paul Simon dancing with Chevy Chase fame are not, in fact, the same place. Needless to say, this was news to Rokwell T. Finger, much like the fate of Old Yeller. Leave it to Griswald Dreck to puncture two balloons with one needle and a story about a glue factory.

According to Dreck, the Paul Simon album I was so eager to experience in real-life form was in fact originally titled Gracieland, a reference to the New Hampshire shrine built in memory of George Burns' late wife. But thanks to an irreputable typesetter with a financial interest in Elvis memorabilia, Simon's message was forever obfuscated.

Now Rok Finger is no fool, and he, meaning me, unwittingly lines the pockets of no man. Unless that man is running a chain letter scam. Rok Finger may not be a fool, but he's even less a fan of bad luck chain letter voodoo. Scary stuff. But thanks to Griswald Dreck, noble American, some Deep South huckster claimed one fewer victim this week. Dreck was even nice enough to take the then-useless plane ticket to Memphis off my hands for twenty dollars American. And before you could say late purchase ticket surcharge, I was on my way to New Hampshire.

In a word, readers, Gracieland is everything I could have hoped for, and did. There are truly angels in the architecture. And that line about the roly-poly little bat-faced girl? No longer an impenetrable mystery. Suffice it to say that George Burns' late wife was not an Amazonian supermodel. Far be it from Rok Finger to hold that against her, however, especially seeing as I have played the troll under the bridge in over 30 elementary school productions of The Brothers Grimm without need of expensive makeup effects or costuming.

Though I had secretly hoped to view the stuffed cadaver of Chevy Chase on this trip, I leave feeling fully satisfied and, for once in my oft-disappointing life, fully on the "inside" of an juicy morsel of popular culture. I haven't felt this hip since discovering the hidden soft drink advertisement in Donovan's hit song Mellow Yellow back in the 1960's.

And more importantly, as with any good vacation, I was able to completely forget about the outside world for a time. Not literally, mind you, I didn't buy a house or ask to start getting my mail here or anything asinine along those lines. But except for the time spent at the public library typing this column and a few calls home to check on Lee and Camembert that were apparently misrouted to the head trauma ward of a veterinary hospital, the last week has been about nothing but Rok Finger getting in touch with Rok Finger. Some would say that altogether too much Rok Finger-touching went on, and that is a distinct possibility, but the late night programming made available on motel TV was utterly beyond my control.

I return home a wiser Rok Finger, and one who now owns more George & Gracie refrigerator magnets than he knows what to do with. I hope Camembert likes magnets, because I've easily got all his birthdays and Christmases covered for the rest of his natural life.

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