all Street, the place (not the Oliver Stone movie) known to confused New York tourists as "Tin Pan Alley," was rocked by erratic stock prices last week following the market-shaking news that Hollywood supercouple Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were separating after four and a half years of marriage. NASDAQ closed down over 400 points Monday as skittish investors struggled to find their place in a cold and confusing new world, and the other market thing also went number two.

"This decision is the result of much thoughtful consideration," explained Pitt to People magazine, "and is not the result of any of the speculation reported by the tabloid media. Thank you for your interest and please respect our privacy in this matter."

Despite the actor's modest response, numerous foreign heads of state jammed the telephone lines after the news broke, desperate for information about the breakup and eager to console the ailing ex-lovers. President Bush was not taking calls on Monday, and according to reports close to the president, Bush spent most of the day sobbing into a large glass of eggnog.

"They were Hollywood's golden couple," cried Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan. "Who didn't want to be Brad Pitt? Or even Jennifer Aniston? That might even be better. Now, I don't know. Maybe we need to slash interest rates again. I'll be in my room if anybody needs me."

TWA cancelled all flights on Saturday in wake of the news, not wanting to take any chances with distraught pilots who might understandably steer their airliners into mountainsides or other points of scenic interest, due to difficulty in processing this dark news.

"Best to give our people a few days off to let this sink in," explained TWA spokesperson Alan Grover, "to get their sense of perspective back and prepare to go on with their lives." Other major airlines were quick to follow suit.

Pitt, widely considered to be one of the most attractive men alive, and Aniston, widely considered to be married to one of the most attractive men alive, were both married in an extravagant ceremony in 2000. Jealous, bitchy tabloids dubbed the coupling "Bradley and the Beast," immediately accusing Pitt of upstaging Aniston in photos, and predicting the marriage would last only five years. Pitt and Aniston had the last laugh however, making the tabloids look foolish by separating a full six months ahead of schedule.

The news fell hard throughout all walks of American life Saturday, from the proverbial man sleeping on the street to the very pinnacles of power, where business titans fretted over the breakup's effect on the already weak dollar.

"Oh shit," despaired Chevron CEO David O'Reilly. "This changes everything."

"Sell! Sell!" screamed day trader Jacob Lerner into a telephone that didn't appear to be plugged in.

Despite the accepted tradition of a national week of mourning following all significant celebrity breakups, the NFL decided to continue with playoff games Saturday, honoring the couple instead with fighter jet fly-overs above all playoff stadiums.

"America needs to feel hope for the future in this dark hour," explained NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue. "And if the Patriots putting the smack-down on the Colts is what provides that hope for people, well, then it is the NFL's solemn duty to dish out the hope."

"For the love of God, please respect our privacy as human beings," pleaded Pitt graciously on Tuesday, clearly flattered by all the attention after climbing over the throng of reporters blocking the entrance to the couple's Hollywood Hills home.

A hastily-arranged tribute concert for the couple went off without a hitch Saturday night, with consoling acts such as Norah Jones, Korn, Seal, and Hootie and the Blowfish all paying tribute to the beautiful couple in a tear-filled salute at Madison Square Garden, shared with the world via Pay per View.

Celebrity singer Whitney Houston, though not involved in the concert nor a friend of the couple, consoled both Brad and Jennifer with a spontaneous telephone rendition of her soaring ballad "I Will Always Love You" on Saturday night. Aniston was reportedly stunned into silence by the call, while Pitt was not home at the time and will reportedly hear the song on his answering machine later.

"Jesus, can't you people leave us the fuck alone?" gasped an exasperated Pitt, cornered by news crews in a toilet stall of a Hollywood restaurant's men's room on Sunday.

Flattered into embarrassment by all the attention, Pitt meanwhile has refused to speak to the American media further about the breakup, speaking only to Japanese reporters who, due to cultural differences, don't understand the concept of romance.

News of the breakup comes amidst rumors of Pitt's celebrainfadelity with fellow hot person Angelina Jolie on the set of their upcoming film Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with tabloids speculating that Jolie can better relate to Pitt's ultragorgeous status, unlike the merely attractive Aniston.

Similar rumors spread during the filming of last year's Ocean's Twelve, when the hunk-like Pitt was paired romantically on-screen with the similarly unattainable Catherine Zeta-Jones, despite Jones' icky marriage to ancient crypt-keeper Michael Douglas.

Financial analysts are banking their hopes for a U.S. economic recovery on either a Pitt-Aniston reconciliation early in 2005, or a quick remarriage between Pitt and Jolie, Zeta-Jones, or other suitable ultrahottie.

oodbye, 2004. Thanks so much for biting the dong and hanging around for at least eleven months too long, until it finally took a forty-story tall wall of hauling ass saltwater to wash your taste out of our mouths. Thanks for finally dragging your skanky, broken ass off our calendar at last, and don’t think we won’t be calling the Goodwill in the morning to come pick up what’s left of your shit. The new year is here, and it doesn’t stink quite so strongly of Jovan Musk.

2004 dazzled us like strange, incomprehensible kabuki theater, in which a talking gonad was somehow re-elected president and the biggest group of losers this side of Color Me Badd accidentally won the World Series. Martha Stewart went to jail and Kobe Bryant didn’t, teaching America’s children a valuable lesson about the horrors of overly tasteful home décor. The country had to grow up fast with the revelation that Janet Jackson has breasts, while her brother Michael strangely has no interest in the same. Americans everywhere were up in arms about an unjustified war in Iraq… no wait, sorry. Americans everywhere were up in arms about a fertilizer salesman who snuffed his wife, vigilantly demanding to see justice done before more Modesto singles could be put in harm’s way.

Meanwhile, on the bright side of political news, Ronald Reagan and Yasser Arafat both died in “unrelated� incidents, leaving more Ben Gay for the rest of us.

There were also the usual run of celebrity mercy killings, though 2004 couldn’t even get those right, as nobody was especially eager to see Ray Charles, Marlon Brando, Rodney Dangerfield or Christopher Reeve go. Though the thought of the four of them all on the same bus to the afterlife offers many amusing possibilities, which isn’t a half-bad idea for a sitcom or at least a winning bar joke. Note to self: write down this million-dollar idea!

2004 was the year gays started getting married, Britney Spears couldn’t stay married, and somebody accidentally married J-Lo. Though thanks to a timely UN intervention, Ben Affleck remained single at year’s end.

But mostly, 2004 felt like a dead hooker rolled up in a carpet, which shrinks mercifully in the rearview mirror by the minute as we peel out bravely into the future. Both of the top grossing films of the year were sequels, which seems like a golden treat when you realize the third-place film was about Jesus getting the holy shit beaten out of him. And the top-selling album of the year was by some kind of disgruntled movie theater employee, likely having had to sit through one too many screenings of The Passion of the Christ or, even worse, Catwoman.

However, movies couldn’t sate our thirst for horribleness in 2004, so the real world had to oblige us with the Madrid train attacks, ethnic cleansing in Sudan, and the tragic first-ever meeting of the Russian PTA. By the time the south Asian tsunami rinsed what was left of 2004 down the crapper, few were sad to see it go. Unless they were wealthy, horny Republican NBA stars with points on The Passion.

We’ll miss you, 2004. Like we miss polyester underwear. Don’t let history hit you in the ass on your way out.

Hello and welcome to day four of Operation Jerkhunt, the pet project of a neighborhood group I recently organized to hunt down the freakish scum who stole my neighbor Hamms' Winnebago and, once they'd had their vile fun, dumped it in the Potomac River to conceal the evidence of their truly heinous crimes against the retired. That's the story the vigilante group is working from anyway, I personally know better but am in the unique position of being unable to correct their misconceptions without revealing the fact that Omar Bricks was the one who borrowed the Winni and, through no fault of my own, drove it into the Potomac with a half-naked record store clerk in the shower. "Drove" is actually entirely too strong a word, since in truth there was a giant stuffed carnival bear behind the wheel at the time, and the Winnebago actually rolled downhill backwards into the river thanks to the stuffed bear's poor understanding of parking brake procedures.

I have a rock-solid alibi since I was in the Winnebago's shower at the time, as can be backed up by a half-naked record store clerk named either Darlene or Danielle. That was a large part of the problem, actually, since when you're already wet and in the shower, it's not as obvious as it would otherwise be that your mobile home is steadily sinking into one of America's greatest rivers. So by the time you put two and two together, it's way too late to organize a team of pack mules to pull the Winnebago out of the river before someone's collection of rare "road music" LPs is damaged by the river water, silt, and various beaver activities therein.

So far we've had little luck tracking down the vermin, though we have concluded conclusively that there's no way in hell he could live in our neighborhood. In fact, it was likely a woman, possibly crippled, from remote Eastern Europe, making retaliation all but impractical. There is a moral victory, however, in knowing the truth, and I know that Hamms has appreciated my help and the fact that he can sleep well at night now, knowing that Omar Bricks is keeping an eye on his house and assorted goodies.

Our previous misunderstandings about my frequent trespassing in his bathroom, burning down his house while it was being built, having him arrested twice on charges of necrophilia, and taking a shit in his garden and blaming it on my dog now well behind us, Hamms and I have moved on to a beautiful new phase of our friendship. Namely the first phase after someone's been your enemy before and now you think they're okay on a provisional basis. Like I said, truly a beautiful thing.

He's had me over to his house for beers twice now, once that he knew about, and I can clearly see the roots of a lifelong friendship taking hold. Or at least as long as he's going to live, which from the looks of things should only be another seven months at best since Hamms is older than Bob Hope. But Omar Bricks is pretty good at seven month friendships. Any longer than that and you hit the dreaded "Seven Month Itch," when your friend inevitably finds out that you used their precious Hummel figurine collection for a pyrotechnic-heavy one-sixteenth scale recreation of the Spanish Civil War or that you're the one who's been painting all those crude sexual figures on their bathroom walls at night.

But those first seven months, or five, man. That's the beautiful part. Bricks out.

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