n a move that surprised the slow and feeble-minded alike, President Bush appointed diplomat John Negroponte as America’s first Director of National Intelligence this week, in an attempt to shore up the nation’s failing mental defenses.

“Now this may be a case of the pig callin’ the posy pink,� folkified Bush, our national leader and self-described folk hero. “But y’all is dumb as shit.�

Surprised and appalled by his own re-election, sources report Bush quickly decided something needed to be done about national intelligence, and the lucid and well-coordinated Negroponte was the obvious answer. Speaking in complete sentences and rarely attending to bodily itches with his house keys are said to be the strong suits that brought Negroponte to the president’s attention.

Negroponte, dressed in matching colors and with all button-holes and buttons lined up correctly on his vest, accepted the new position of Intelligence Czar graciously.

“It’s about time you dumbasses got your shit together,� announced the charitable-yet-firm Negroponte. “Though the fact that you all did something this smart frankly worries me. Is there a bucket of crap dangling over my head or something?�

According to the strangely-named Negroponte, whose last name does not mean “Black Dude� in Spanish or Italian, national intelligence has been going downhill for almost fifty years, pretty much ever since The Andy Griffith Show debuted in 1960. As a corrective measure, the new Intelligence Czar has called for the immediate canceling of all reality TV, switching all broadcasts of the Spice Channel to PBS, and outlawing country music. Whether these early remedies will be successful, however, remains to be seen since slack-jawed apathy remains so firmly rooted in the national character. Word on the street indicates that Negroponte may have his work cut out for him.

“What Russian royalty have to say about intelligence is a mystery to me,� sniped freelance quote-whore Dennis Murphy. “He should put on his big fuzzy hat and go back to Eskimoland.�

A surprising number of men on the street (and two dumb-looking women) seemed to confuse the concept of an Intelligence Czar and the famous Russian leaders of antiquity. Several half-educated men were convinced all the Czars had been murdered by the Bullshitiks in the Industrial Revolution. As a result, the commune has decided to refrain from using colorful or figurative language in the future, to avoid further misunderstanding and possible bloodshed.

Oppressed Bullshitiks, however, can find Negroponte at the White House during his office hours.

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T'was the night before Christmas, and all through Bricks Manor, not a creature was sleeping, because my neighbor's house was all the fuck on fire. I shit you not, communauts, this was one bizarre-smelling Christmas. I barely saved the fireworks I keep buried in my lawn, and Foghat took a big black Christmas shit after gorging himself on some kind of half-melted attic insulation. This Christmas wasn't lacking Santa, just sanity.

As the most plausible recorded version of that night's events goes, Omar Bricks had just settled down for a long winter's nap with his trusty basset hound Foghat at the foot of the bed, watching for gremlins, when from out by the lawn there arose such a clatter, I jumped up and screamed "What the fuck??" like a pissed-off ninja. Away to the window I flew like The Flash, not as fast but just as naked. Or was that The Streak? One of those guys. And anyway, yeah, the new house they'd just finished building on Dale's old lot was way the hell on fire.

For a second, brave thoughts of dashing in heroically and getting all my shit out of there whizzed through my brain, like a half-remembered action movie. Then I realized the flames were like forty feet high and that camping gear was borrowed anyway. Sure, I'd left some boxes of crackers and shit in there too, but they were probably all brown on one side due to the raging inferno that was lighting up the neighborhood like the Griswalds' Christmas decorations. And in all likelihood, eventually I would get more crackers.

So instead, Foghat and I broke out the lawn chairs and took in the show while those fire department nuts went all Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the roof and shot us dirty looks for not sharing our toasted marshmallows. I think we had the entire fire department for three counties out there by the end of it, those guys get on their walkie-talkies and word gets out like it's a high school kegger. Most of them were just standing on the front lawn, trying to piss out the fire with recycled lite beer, so in all likelihood those guys actually had come from a high school kegger. But just the same, some of those guys were handy with a disposable camera, meaning Foghat and I did get some killer keepsake shots posing in front of the inferno plus some action shots of us dragging drunk-assed firemen away from the blaze like we were David Bowie-sized heroes.

So all in all, it was a good time and not a bad way to spend your Christmas Eve. That is, until the next morning, when I start getting calls from some crackpot arson inspector because the wiseass finally found my missing camping stove in the smoking wreckage. What a dickhead. Like I'm going to burn down an entire house just so I can collect the insurance settlement on a shitty Coleman propane stove. That dude must've got his arson license out of a box of Honey Smacks.

Tragic as my losses in the inferno may have been, I did have the satisfaction of being proved right in the public arena. That'll teach Martha Stewart to try and tell me you can't slow cook s'mores by setting a crock pot on fire. Once those arson vultures had dug out what was left of my crock and we cracked it open like a dinosaur egg, Foghat and I chowed down on the best s'mores this side of Valhalla. Shank that, Dragon Lady.

And truth be told, I had been a little sad after they finished building that house so fast, taking away my personal playground and cash cow, or as I came to call it, The Money Pit. No more guided tours or selling rolls of fiberglass insulation to tourists as souvenirs, no more crashing through unfinished walls like the Kool-Aid guy to the glee of neighborhood kids, and no more re-living the nail gun scene from Lethal Weapon with Foghat at two in the morning. Talk about your cold shower letdowns.

But now, by the grace of God, or at least the God of crock-pot fires anyway, I'll get to live it all again like some kind of glorious re-run. 2005 already looks like it's going to be an Omar Bricks kind of year. And regardless of what those contractors have been saying, I give them lousy odds at keeping the mysteriously destructive "neighborhood vigilante" out of the construction site this second time around. The trick is that you don't have to break into a house if you can fool the construction guys into building it around you after you're already inside.

Bricks out.

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You get asked a lot of stupid questions when you write for the commune. Like, "What is the commune?" and "Who the hell are you?" and "Sir, can you empty your pockets please? Don't cause a scene, sir." But every once in a while a non-dumbass will ask a question I think warrants an answer, and so I try to take a moment to appease that foolboy. This week I answer the question, "What does the name of your column, 'My Friend Polio,' mean?"

Your roughneck narrator has a very big and occupied world to deal with, compadres, and so I sometimes forget your world is altogether different, often smaller and more disappointing. So I forget sometimes a title like "My Friend Polio" is lost on all of you who don't hang with Mr. Bricks in person. Let me try to define the nature of "My Friend Polio" and why that title is the letterhead for this column each week.

Growing up in Waucheska, New Jersey was pretty cool. We were so close to Asbury Park that I got many a Springsteen reference all you midwest cowpunchers didn't. Then Bon Jovi came along from New Jersey and fucked up a good thing; we all tried to keep it a secret, then that Alpha Centauri-sized asshole had to go and title an album "New Jersey," making it all more than obvious. Goddamned nutsack-tugger. Anyway, forget him, getting off-track.

I had lots of friends growing up, but two best friends--one was Johnshark Remnants and the other was a guy I could never remember nor pronounce his name, so me and Johnshark called him "Polio," 'cause one leg was terrifyingly smaller than the other on him. Mind you I don't think he actually had Polio, not even sure what that shit is, Johnshark came up with the name, and I think it was cured by Dr. Spock anyway, and if you get down to brass tacks, amigo, I don't want to know what he had, but suffice to say one leg was big-fuckin'-difference smaller.

Back in the day, Johnshark, Polio, and me were big into NBC's "Voyagers." Now this ain't the crappy UPN "Star Trek" spin-off with freaks galore and a bitch captain. This is the crappy NBC time-travelling show with only one little Waldo-shirted freak and some big bitch time traveller who later shot himself by accident I hear, no joke. But anyway, the show didn't last long because the motherfuckers at NBC were always looking for some big drama like "The A-Team" and wouldn't give sci-fi a chance back in them days. Johnshark, Polio, and me specialized in collecting memorabilia from the short lived show and bragged at parties that collectively we had the largest gathering of "Voyagers" merchandising and collectibles available. Whenever we got invited to parties, 'course.

Then, boom! Along comes this rich asshole Carrington Johnson, who we hear has basically all the shit we got times two, plus the coveted "Voyagers" lunchbox complete with thermos intact—only 200 of those were made before NBC cancelled the fucking show. Naturally, dudes, we wouldn't stand for it. The guys and me planned a little midnight rendezvous to add this dweeb's memorabilia, lunchbox and all, to our own collection. Johnshark assured us that there was a constitutional ammendment testifying "that no one of doofus stature shall possess infinitely cool stuff whilst some bad motherfuckers do without." It's been a long time and I ain't ever checked that clause out, truthfully, but I gotta admit the "whilst" sounds dead on like the Constitution.

So we saddle up in pure commando gear, bad motherfuckers in the truest sense—fuckin' Doc Martens before they was cool, black turtlenecks like mothefuckin' "Mission: Impossible," except for Polio who only had a dark green one, and black knitcaps, except for Johnshark, who had this big-ass ten gallon cowboy hat, that son of a bitch knew how to carry out commando-esque action in style!

So lo and behold, the fuckin' door is left open! This shit couldn't be easier. And this mighty bastard don't even have nothing put up in cupboards with locks or something, no laser-type motion sensors or nothing, which would've been cool as fuck but hard as a virgin on prom night to bust. All this priceless treasure is packed away in boxes, and me, Polio, and hat-wearin' motherfucker Johnshark just waltz in and grab this booty, hauling off everything, Polio taking special care to grab that incredible lunchbox-thermos combo and making off like a bandit.

But shit explodes on the lawn when some gargantuan Rottweiler starts chomping down on us at full speed. That awesome Johnshark converted to pussy in record time and drops all the bonanza, zooms across the lawn, over the hedges in a single jump and I swear I didn't see that yellow motherfucker for another two years, no shit.

Me, I never learn a lesson before it happens, so I grab up as much of Johnshark's shit as possible and try to make it to the fence, convinced I could scale that badass faster than that dog can catch up with me. But Polio, prized lunchbox in hands, reaches the fence first and goddamn if his little bizarro fuckin' leg don't go right through the spokes and gets stuck.

I throw all of our ill-gotten gains over the fence in one hurle, like "whoosh!" it's over, and then try to get that little freak leg out of the fence, 'cause Omar Bricks never leaves a man behind, don't you know. But this dog is down on my ass by the time I get Polio's toothpick leg out that damn fence, and I hurl the motherfucker right over the fence, breaking my previous record for shit tossed over the fence. But as luck would have it, I break the fucker's leg, too—and wouldn't you know it, it's the big one. Goddamn if Lady Luck don't fuck me with a strap-on sometimes.

So I clear the fence like I sprouted wings on my ass just as that big dog tries to grab some Omar on the way up. I land on the other side and it's pretty clear Polio ain't going anywhere without a wheelbarrow under his ass. So I start thinking of where I can get a wheelbarrow, but wouldn't you trust that little pygmy-leg son of a bitch to take the high road and say to me, "Go, Omar! It's too late for me! Save yourself."

Omar Bricks don't need to be told nothing twice. I'm out of there before Polio can change his mind, even as I hear him scream things behind me. I think that dog might've climbed the fence and started gnawing on his leg like a rawhide chew, but I'll be damned if I'm going to turn my head and lose much-needed velocity.

That was a long time ago. I read in the paper Polio's doing hard time now. That crazy bastard never said one word about yours truly or that massive infection of cowardice Johnshark. And Lady Luck took unkindly to his ass as well—he was assigned to a minimum security prison, then became part of this prison exchange program with Guatemala. Now he's busting rock in some goddamn hellhole to finance some rich-ass king or something while some little fuckin' political prisoner tart is living the highlife in his minimum security joint.

That's the story, mates—long and ugly, like a pecker in a porno. It was after that Omar Bricks decided to turn his life around and stay away from the evil temptation of stolen TV memorabilia. Polio would've wanted it that way. Maybe still does, how should I know? I don't even remember his real goddamn name to look him up in the phone book if he was out. But I'm forever appreciative, wherever you are, you off-balance motherfucker. So everytime you all tuck in to read some shit on the commune, remember to thank Polio for me.

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