t’s almost the time of year to start pretending you’re Christmas shopping while you look for swanky new shit for yourself, and the commune is there for you with our first-ever annual Fall Gadget Guide. Join commune Tech Correspondent Mitch Kroeger as he guides you through the bewildering wilderness of the new and the shiny.

















Be sure to join us again next year when we’ll take a look at the iPod Video, the Petco Remote Control Dog Neuterer and the Nokia Earring Phone. Until then, stay tight.

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A common question crosses many people's minds when they're scowling at credit card slips in dimly lit restaurants or digging deep into their trouser pockets for a few bills, some spare change and a condom wrapper to toss onto the table at the completion of their meal. Why, for God's sake, did I just tip the guy who brought me the wrong drink twice and left a chunk of his dreadlock skirting around in the bottom of my bowl of soup? And come to think of it, why do I tip waiters at all? I certainly didn't tip the guy who unclogged my toilet with his bare hands or the guy who fucks my horrifically obese wife for me, so why get all philanthropic on somebody for carrying your Diet Slice fifteen feet? A perplexing question, indeed.

The custom of tipping dates back to the Roman Empire, a time that truly represented the Dark Ages of food service. Waiters were surly, sub-literate and prone to having volatile tempers. Diners frequently ate entire meals they did not order out of fear of raising the waiter's ire. The situation came to a head when the Roman Emperor Claudius requested a saltshaker when dining one night and the waiter responded by vomiting down the Emperor's shirt. Claudius had all of the waiters in Rome beheaded that night, and that incident inspired the Roman populace to spontaneously begin tipping their servers out of fear over what kind of scoundrels had been dug up to replace the executed national wait staff. At the time, a small bribe to one's server was seen as a favorable alternative to possibly losing an eye.

The practice of tipping died off with the decline of the Roman Empire, but was born anew in England during the Middle Ages. Feudal lords would throw bits of gold to the meanest-looking peasants as they traveled through the streets, as a way to decrease the chances of the unwashed masses rising up and overtaking their carriages, tearing them limb from feudal limb, and stretching their hides to make ceremonial drums. The feudal lords would tell stories of the cannibalistic masses to their children, who grew up to be generous tippers themselves.

By the 16th century, men of social status were so paranoid about offending potentially murderous members of the working class that they began the tradition of tipping servers in restaurants. The gratuity was meant as an invitation for the server to have a drink on them, and to alleviate their guilt over not having to work a day in their lives while everybody else toiled seven days a week, slaving over sow's ears trying to make silk purses and whatnot. But before long the servers became spoiled and every pub in the land featured a tip jar, inscribed with the words "To Insure Promptitude," which basically meant that if you don't cough up some cash for the jar, you're going to grow donkey antlers before you get a drink, bub. No one is sure where they got the word "promptitude" from, but the most popular theory is that, like today, many of the servers were college grad students who found their degrees useless in the harsh Medieval economy.

The custom of tipping most likely would have faded out on it's own during the Renaissance, were it not for the famed Italian wise-ass, Pico della Petrarka. Petrarka coined the joke "Q. What did the leper say to the prostitute? A. Keep the tip." which has had remarkable staying power over the ages. Many times when the practice of tipping might have faded into the annals of history naturally, it was brought back when someone had to explain the punch line of that joke, which made everyone feel guilty about not tipping and brought back the practice yet again.

Tipping spread to America in the early 1900's, when tourists picked up the custom in Europe and started practicing it back home just to show off how swanky their shit really was. However, like every other time the practice was introduced, servers soon came to expect the tips and actual food service quality remained as lousy and impersonal as ever.

With no fears of proletarian cannibalism to fuel the custom today, modern parents have turned to telling their children fairy tales about how tips guarantee quality service in the future and help out the unfortunates stuck in low-paying food service jobs. Especially bright children who question why we subsidize one unskilled, low-paying profession and not the hundreds of others are sent to bed without a tootsie pop.

Today, tipping has become so ingrained and expected that waiters consider tips below 15% not to be tips at all, but rather personal insults deserving of true contempt, and anyone anywhere who even has to smell the public expects to be tipped, including paperboys and librarians. Some economists argue that tipping provides cost-effective incentives for superior service, but in actual practice, most Americans are reminded of another joke:

	A man walks into a restaurant, sits down, and orders a three-course meal. After a time, the waiter comes back with his soup, but the man notices that the waiter has his thumb stuck inside the bowl. Thinking it an odd but honest mistake, the man says nothing. But when his pasta dish comes and the waiter's thumb is stuck into that, too, the man is truly baffled. Not wanting to cause a stir, he says nothing. He merely finishes his meal and waits for desert. Finally, his hot fudge brownie comes, and the waiter's thumb is stuck in that as well! The man has had more than enough, and he demands to know why the waiter is sticking his thumb in all of the food. The waiter explains that he has a nasty fungal infection under his thumbnail, and that doctor's orders require him to keep his thumb in a warm and moist place at all times. Exasperated, the man blurts out: "Well, why don't you just stick it up your ass, then?!?" The waiter pauses briefly, then calmly replies: "Where do you think I had it while I was in the kitchen?" º Last Column: The Trojan Horse º more columns
May 26, 2003 The Second commune Enthusiasts Club Meeting Anyone who's been receiving the commune Enthusiasts Club's personal newsletter should know we planned on discussing the major issues facing the commune and how we, as commune fans, should react. Before I get into that, however, I would like to ask everyone out there to sign up for the commune newsletter by contacting me at Zenderphenia@hotmail.com. The last time I gave this out in a column I received a huge number of people signing up, followed by about a million pieces of junk mail detailing how I could enlarge parts of my anatomy. I'm glad for the huge turnout, folks, but I do have to wonder why I'm not hearing from any of you again. Very few of you are showing up at the actual Club meetings and just as many aren't responding to my e-mails asking for information for the Club records, like your name and stuff like that, nothing too personal. A lot of e-mails are even bouncing back, so maybe you accidentally gave me the wrong reply address. Still, it was a record-setting turnout for the commune Enthusiasts Club last weekend when those two guys showed up who thought we were actual communists. Sorry we disappointed you, guys, but I'm glad you stuck around for the entire meeting and I finished your free literature as was part of the agreement—interesting stuff, I'll write you personal e-mails back. Hopefully we'll see Christopher and Stag again, they'll be welcome additions to the club as soon as we can get their last names and put them... º Last Column: The First commune Enthusiasts Club Meeting º more columns Anyone who's been receiving the commune Enthusiasts Club's personal newsletter should know we planned on discussing the major issues facing the commune and how we, as commune fans, should react. Before I get into that, however, I would like to ask everyone out there to sign up for the commune newsletter by contacting me at Zenderphenia@hotmail.com. The last time I gave this out in a column I received a huge number of people signing up, followed by about a million pieces of junk mail detailing how I could enlarge parts of my anatomy. I'm glad for the huge turnout, folks, but I do have to wonder why I'm not hearing from any of you again. Very few of you are showing up at the actual Club meetings and just as many aren't responding to my e-mails asking for information for the Club records, like your name and stuff like that, nothing too personal. A lot of e-mails are even bouncing back, so maybe you accidentally gave me the wrong reply address. Still, it was a record-setting turnout for the commune Enthusiasts Club last weekend when those two guys showed up who thought we were actual communists. Sorry we disappointed you, guys, but I'm glad you stuck around for the entire meeting and I finished your free literature as was part of the agreement—interesting stuff, I'll write you personal e-mails back. Hopefully we'll see Christopher and Stag again, they'll be welcome additions to the club as soon as we can get their last names and put them on the roll. I'll just pencil in "Marx" as the last name for now. But even with the confusing large turnout, Vice-President Sandy Meckler and I managed to get some club business done. Besides the glaring absence of Editor Red Bagel being the big speedbump in the commune road right now, and the faltering quality that has followed, as commune Enthusiasts (capitalization intentional) we should be considering the efforts by major press junkets to lock the commune out of press meetings and other legitimate-press events. Reuters, AP, and all the major networks seem to be involved in some sort of conspiracy to cripple the commune in its attempts to get the news and report it accurately. In this age of nationalism and presidential yes, ma'am-ing, it is of greater import than ever before that the commune have access to the newsmakers the same as larger media outlets. Only the commune will report the news without putting a spin on it. It appears to stem mostly from an April 25 press conference held by Ari Fleischer, and an incident involving commune reporter Ramon Nootles, who pointed to a CNN correspondent and said a little too loudly, "Check out the nips on that one." Those of us who know the commune's troubled history with the mainstream press, however, would not be surprised to learn this incident was staged as a trap for Nootles—Helen Thomas is always standing next to the thermostat in the White House press room, and Nootles is famous for his observant nature on reactions to cold temperatures. Anyway, this has been more a thorn in the commune's side than a complete shut-down of news access. But if the attempt to keep them from gathering facts continues, how should the commune keep its facts straight? Maybe the mainstream press would like to see the commune just make up things, fabricate quotes and even news incidents like that New York Times reporter? Fear not, commune Enthusiasts. We need to pull together and petition the press to allow the commune a second chance. That way we'll continue to get all the news that's only moderately fit to print. º Last Column: The First commune Enthusiasts Club Meeting º more columns