ith much of the South either bracing for or fucked up by hurricane damage, the president suffering from historically low approval ratings, and the daily civilian death toll from Iraq taking on Halo proportions, a bruised nation turned its hopes to Apple's latest portable music player this week.

"We fully expect he Nano to change the way we live our lives just as much as the original iPod did back in 1997," Apple founder Steve Jobs announced at a recent press conference, possibly referring to how additional profits for Apple could change his lifestyle for the better. Unfortunately, no one present had a microphone with which to argue or pose questions of semantics. "Besides, I know you've all got shit else going right in your lives right now, so fork over the cash already."

Disaffected Americans from across the iPod-affording spectrum licked their chops in anticipation of the Nano, which is just like the last iPod, except smaller and more expensive.

"This year has really been a shit biscuit," lamented Syracuse sophomore Sean Hannesy. "But I'm pretty confident that my spending $250 on an MP3 player is going to turn things around."

The release of the Nano comes not a moment too soon for a worn-out American public. With the Catholic Church in icky disarray, misogynistic gangsta rap topping the charts, and the recent news that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will seek re-election, many have been searching desperately for a money-spending distraction.

Hollywood has provided no solace, with a disappointing batch of summer movies—even by summer movie standards—leading to another terrible box office slump that has limited studio profits to the mere billions. Even sadder, American audiences have been robbed of one of their most time-honored means of avoiding awareness of the world around them.

"I like to call it The Summer of Gigli," explained Paramount executive Paul Walters. "I know that came out last year, but this summer really was that bad. It didn't even have a movie notable enough for use in a clever name."

Meanwhile, 500 Iraqi civilians were blown up by a different group of Iraqi civilians on Saturday, for reasons incomprehensible to white people.

Somehow even more depressing, some asshole in New York this week set the record for consecutive hours of TV-watching, only to have his record rescinded by Guinness when it was discovered he was just watching the first season of Lost on DVD.

"Thank God Apple came out with another iPod," sighed tech writer William Pepper. "Otherwise, this could have been a terrible year for everyone. Now it's just terrible for the poor, liberals, Southerners, Iraqis, movie buffs, music fans, Catholics, Sony, Californians, the Amish, steroid-abusing ballplayers, environmentalists, true conservatives, Cubs fans, animals of all kinds and children. I'm probably forgetting somebody. But it's been a bitchin' year for iPod fans, that's my point."

Lost Leaves Plotlines Half-Solved in Honor of Shooting Victims

MySpace to Offer Breaking News on What Ira Mankovics is Doing Right Now

Alec Baldwin Records Devastating Voice Mail Message for Shooter

Sony’s Poorly Timed “PS3 Price Massacre” Backfires

Some of you out there may think it's all fun and games here at the commune, but I assure you it's not. Fun and games were eliminated when I returned months ago, about the same time I implemented the 30% pay reductions and started receiving those death threats in my inbox. But you can't always rule with an iron thumb, as I learned shortly after being arrested for assault with an iron thumb a while back. Sometimes you have to implement diplomacy. This may be one of those times.

I am all for the occasional goofing off, when I am completely unaware of it. I heartily endorse a work environment where everyone is comfortable when I'm not present. However, when my good will is abused like a 14-year-old's johnson, it's no more Mr. Nice Guy, Alice Cooper. Hence I instituted the strict policy that all commune employees, even the meager people, are no longer allowed to host personal websites. This not only goes for time spent at the office, but time away from the commune as well, and probably infringes upon quite a few constitutional rights, not that I'm bragging.

It is necessary, I assure you. I couldn't have cared less about what my staff did in their off hours a few short weeks ago, and lament all that money wasted on expensive digital videotape. Then I discovered the unsettling image of Ted Ted, half-nude, and dressed entirely as a woman. You couldn't see the naughty bits, thanks to his concealing hands and a well-placed teddy bear, but you might as well have scraped my eyes out with a melon baler and saved me the pain. No one here could forget that frightful image, especially since print-outs of it keep winding up on the hallway bulletin board.

My confidence in Ted Ted was shaken until I found out he took the photos early in his career, when a photographer friend of his assured him all reporters got their foot in the door the same way. Word has it he even produced some candid shots of Dan Rather to prove his point, which I won't argue with, since I don't want to see them myself. But Ted Ted promised the photos were quite old and he no longer engaged in such antics and the man who posted them would mysteriously turn up missing by the end of the week. However, this did not end the whole affair. As usual, with my staff, it was only the beginning.

I'm sure it's been the same case with friends you know, one friend is found looking quite attractive in drag in an old picture, then suddenly everyone is claiming they would look better dressed as a woman. If they want to make such claims and argue them over the water cooler, fine. If they want to host a private party where they all dress up just to prove a point, I have no problem with that either. When they start devoting an exorbitant amount of work time and personal finances to hosting websites where they are dressed as women, unbeknownst to site surfers, and ask people to rate their attractiveness in relation to each other, well, that's where I draw the line. Admittedly, my line-drawing was a little late on this occasion.

As I made clear to them yesterday, I will no longer tolerate randomly surfing for poontang and discovering one of my reporters wearing a teddy and garters. This also goes to the columnists and IT associates. Particularly Randy. Your news work is getting sloppy, the broadband out there is being tested, and I am sick of reading letters from lonely prisoners.

It is also a waste of time. It is quite clear Ivan Nacutchacokov is the real honey amongst you. Suck it up and give the queen his crown, fellas.

º Last Column: 64 Bits in a Two-Bit World
º more columns

Good people, I have had one of those experiences that only happens to other people. I have been abducted! And not by aliens, as you might first suspect, and even hope. I was abducted by beatniks!

It starts like any other story of abduction. I found my car stalled, by myself out on a rural road, away from the bright lights of the city—even the stars themselves seemed dim that far out. I tried to start my car once again and only got that whiny "enh-enh" sound going. Immediately, I got out and began walking, naturally fearing a UFO would show up and give me a super-suit to fight crime with. I don't have that kind of time, bossy Neptunians. But something more incredible happened!

Beatniks, tooling around in their convertible jalopy, motored alongside me like something out of a Ginsberg dream. They chatted me up and asked me if I wanted a ride. Of course, I never take a ride with beatniks, like mama Finger always said. But they wouldn't take no for an answer. I found myself soon bound and gagged, tossed into the back of the jalopy like a sack of potatoes.

I couldn't imagine what they wanted with me. For a short time, I even imagined they were aliens disguised as beatniks, in order to draw slightly less attention to themselves—but that made no sense. I invited them to probe me, and though one of them mulled it over for a long time, none of them took me up on it. They instead seemed to concentrate on writing poems about me, asking me what my bag was, and then reading said poetry to me while they charged me a lot for a simple cup of coffee. No mistake; these were beatniks.

Why me? No one can say. But they did say—apparently I'm one major-domo angry cat. Or, as Pie-Daddy said, "Yo, normally we ain't down with the anger thing. Some bad-mood Charlie starts his mantra on us, we all like, 'Chill, Franklin.' But your rage, man, it's like a thing of pure beauty. That kind of rage glows forever, like a firepit in a down-and-out steel mill that burns in hopes of one day…" And at this point I stopped listening. What he clearly said, as far as I can tell, is that my anger is better than everyone else's. The rest was superfluous.

I figured I would stick around with them, for just a short while, and give back something to the artistic community—especially since we've tried to remain good friends, the community and I, ever since that truce we signed back in 1971. If I can take a few hours out of my busy schedule and inspire a whole new generation of beatniks, it's the least I can do. But no more than a few hours, I told them, because I have shit that isn't going to do itself, frankly.

But these cats (check me out; I'm catching on already!) weren't content to just let me sit around and be a muse. They kept asking me questions, like how I grew up, what my relationship with my mother was like, and what made me so damned disappointed with life that I had to go around in a constant rage. I could only tell them I'm just lucky, I guess. But they still pressed me. Answer this, answer that! Only they had actual questions instead of "this" and "that," which actually aren't. I got bored of all that fast. I have angry columns to write and X-M radio distributors to boycott, I can't waste all of my time answering questions. Sitting around not answering questions, much less of a drain on my time. The questions had to go.

We couldn't come to an amicable agreement, the beatniks and I, so I crafted an elaborate escape plan. I carved an exact duplicate of myself out of soap (the nose was particularly hard to get right) and then, once I had it all tucked into my bed, announced I was going to the local grocery store to get enough soap to do models of them as well. It worked brilliantly, and I, of course, never returned.

I feel a little bad, abandoning a life as inspiration to the poets of tomorrow. But Rok Finger's always been a doer, good people. Not a doee. Nor a doe—ignore any type-O's suggesting that.

º Last Column: Marry All the Way
º more columns