the commune Focus: Teen Mind-Control

n efforts to control crime and young minds in the past decade, many cities have followed the move of small towns to institute curfews and keep young people off the street. As part of the commune's ongoing attempt to bring you closer to the world around you, the issues presented to the American public, and eventually get you to buy our sociological journals, the commune brings you the commune Focus: Teen Curfews and Other Forms of Mind-Control.

Most recently, the town council of Vernon, Connecticut, some kind of state in the country, decided not to appeal a federal court ruling upholding a ban on their longtime teen curfew. Teens everywhere celebrated by playing X-Box, using swear words, and having unprotected sex in between backyard wrestling matches. The town council vowed to do nothing until hearing which way the parental outrage swung.

The ban on the town curfew came after ACLU (ack-loo) lawyers challenged the law on the premise it was written in Spanish. That having failed, the ACLU then challenged on behalf of parents' rights to set their own children's curfews, and then challenged on the idea it violated the rights of children themselves, best two out of three, but the court bit on the second suit.

The ruling could dissuade other pompous town council people in Footloose-type situations from passing legislation taking away the rights of anybody under the age of 21. Other issues in controlling teen thought are in dangerous territory with the frown on teen curfews, including a legal drinking age of 21, school uniforms, and chemical castration (for boys only).

"It's very important teens learn restraint in social situations," said Child Psychology professor Fett Geraldo, an ancient prick far too old to have any fun anymore. "Children lack the same wizened social skills and experience to make decisions of importance for themselves like what to wear and what time to come in, whether to obey their parents or not. I know you're thinking people once said that about women and non-white people, but I assure such assessments are only mostly accurate. Anyone under the age of eighteen, or twenty-one, if we're talking alcohol, is clearly not mature enough to make decisions for himself. Or herself. Hell, look at all these teen websites for just-turned-eighteen girls, you can see what I mean."

This reporter did look at the websites, and was quite impressed by Dr. Geraldo's point. And the flexibility of one particular Ukrainian girl.

Teens, however, were demonstrably pissed off by the professor's opinion, and modern music.

"This is just another example of one group claiming they know what's best for another," said seventeen-year-old Betty Fullback. "But I know what's best for them—just shut up already. Adults always think young people can't make decisions about anything, and it's stupid. It's just like the sixties—I hear. We need to mobilize and rebel and stuff, to get our rights like the African-Americans did in the 1600s. I'm trying to get some people together at my house this weekend, so if you know anybody who's interested in fighting for their rights, just—as long as I have approval, you know. Let me check the list. I'm on student council, you know, I have some respect to maintain."

Consequently, this reporter found himself uninvited from the party after a lewd pass and a little commune name-dropping.

ollowing former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay's admission pre-war intelligence was practically "all wrong," officials in the Bush administration came forward with announcements everyone was, ostensibly, "shocked."

Staff members ranking as high as the vice president and "president" issued statements on how "shocked" (quote-unquote) everyone in government was about the lack of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Press secretary Scott McClellan said the president himself sort of "dismayed" and "curious" about the "failure" of prewar intelligence. When asked by reporters if the White House planned a probe into the intelligence problem, McClellan restrained a smile and promised someone would get on that "right away."

Conservative news agencies posed questions to McClellan on how the president viewed intelligence and homeland security in the wake of the discovery, while more liberal news agencies questioned the press secretary on the legitimacy of the Iraq war if intelligence has proven faulty. Meanwhile, in the back of the room, one man screamed at the top of the lungs that the president knew, of course he knew, goddammit, everyone in the administration had to have known and they rode into the fucking White House looking for the first excuse to head into Iraq with guns blazing just like daddy did, Jesus Christ, has everyone else on the fucking planet gone so deaf and blind they can't even see the president's a lousy fucking liar? But McClellan did not take questions at that time.

Statements from the White House were seen by many as damage control after Kay's Wednesday admission to a congressional committee early Iraq intelligence claiming Saddam Hussein was developing a program of weapons of mass destruction (or WMD, as the kids are saying) was incorrect. Kay described the "lapse" as a massive intelligence failure, and painted the president as much a victim of the fuck-up as the hundreds of Iraqis lying dead under rubble and blown up by landmines.

"Boy, did we screw the pooch on this one," laughed Kay, to an unforgiving congressional audience. "Yikes. Tough room. But seriously, folks, you know who we should give it up for? Mr. Bush. That's right, the president. I know it's not popular to say so, but I think he's doing a bang-up job and plainly he just wanted to do the right thing and had no idea how shitty this intelligence was. Really, we're talking Pig Latin intelligence or something. Waaaay off, no kidding. I think they were even in Iceland—hey! You gotta give me that one. C'mon. Show the love."

Friday Bush followed the administration's campaign for getting over this as quick as possible by releasing an official statement ripe with quotation marks.

"Obviously we would have done things 'differently' if the intelligence had been more accurate. Assuming that it was accurate—I still say, really, there's no way of telling if anybody's got weapons of mass destruction on them or not. You can hide them anywhere. I've got mustard gas, hidden in a tree house from when I was 12 years old, little gift from dad, nobody ever found it. You telling me Saddam can't hide something in all of Iraq? But I'm getting off message here. We're obviously facing a 'failure' of intelligence here. Everybody here in this administration wants 'peace,' no one more so than me. But if I had it all to do over again, knowing the 'threat' Saddam Hussein poses to the world, I would have done things very much the same. Our 'coalition' in Iraq is 'ready' to 'hand over' the 'country' in the 'next few months,' give or take two or three years."

I've got "hot property" written all over me at the moment, and I know what you're thinking, but I'm not talking about a drunken trip to the tattoo parlor this time. I mean, I've still got "hot property" from that, but this time I'm talking Hollywood talk, meaning that people suddenly remember my phone numbers. And it's all because of Ho's!

My new WB sitcom is getting hot buzz around it, thanks in part to all those phone calls where I pretended to be the TV Guide Couch Critic, and when your show's hot, you're hot, it's Hollywood science. Some people are calling this my big comeback, and not just me. I distinctly heard my agent Dusty say it, too, before he passed out and the 9-1-1 guys had to resuscitate him.

The real clue I was hot was when they called me to do a roast for my fellow actor and good friend Pockets O'Shannon. What a kick-ass child star. And Pockets was fortunate enough to have one of those weird health problems that kept him looking like a kid well after most of us grew facial hair or tits. The V.F.W. Hall was holding a roast for good ol' Pockets, turns out he's a Vietnam Vet, and guess who they picked for their keynote speaker? Guess again, asshole. Beloved child star Clarissa Coleman.

If you don't know, a roast is where you get up and just crack on people until they're pissed off enough to fight you in the parking lot. I've tried hosting a lot of them, but nobody really shows up unless the person's done something to make 'em famous. And Pockets barely qualifies, having starred as the precocious, wise-cracking kid in about two dozen movies between 1969 and 1996. I did two of them with him, Li'l Poachers and The U.F.O. Boy.

I spent weeks thinking up real digs that would totally devastate Pockets, make him turn bright red, even piss himself with fury. All in good fun, of course, except for a few things about his grandmother's diabetes that really cross the line. But Pockets is a good sport, just don't ever say we lost the 'Nam, that grinds his nads.

Now you've got the backstory, so I show up for the gig (I never do rehearsals, I told 'em) and find out, no joking, they only wanted me to introduce all his 'Nam buddies, they were supposed to be the only ones actually roasting him. Sure, I told them I would just stick to the scripted introduction, like I've told a ton of know-it-all directors, then I got up there and threw out my script—no way I was going to waste gold material because these dopes lacked vision.

So you can bet I stung him. I started off simple, just how he smells really bad and hasn't worked in years, since losing all his hair in that chemotherapy, but then I got to the really hard stuff. Making fun of his Members' Only jacket ("Does your calendar say 1986 at home?" I really said that) and how his two sons are clearly fathered by some black guy. Then, I got a little more cerebral and all—and this was hard, because by this time these two old guys were trying to walk me off the stage, but I overpowered them—and I did this whole skit about him buying this really awful pot off some Mexican guy (I brought a mustache from home) for us to smoke, and then talked about that time he tried to grab my just-starting-to-form breasts while we were doing that Poachers movie. The best part was I closed on stuff I just made up on the spot, when his wife was calling out his name as he left, covering his face—his name was Lindsey O'Shannon the whole time, not Pockets. For real. Lindsey's a total girl's name.

I know they taped it, but they may have stopped the tape after they told me to get off the stage for the fifth time. The show was just too hot for the V.F.W., I'm pretty sure. But if I can get a copy of that tape and get it to the right people in Vegas, I know I could get side gigs lined up for years to come. Just to cover me when Ho's! gets canceled. Always good to have a Plan B.

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