inally bringing to an end weeks of guano-infested cave searching by American marines, along with weeks of slightly anxious channel surfing by the American public, Osama bin Laden was captured by U.S. forces on Saturday. After months of successfully dodging U.S. military efforts and covert-ops "snatch and grab" missions, bin Laden was ultimately done in by a faulty rubber band in his midsection, which snapped, causing his torso and legs to separate. Escape was then near impossible for the Saudi militant.

Reports differ as to the reason behind the failure of bin Laden's rubber band. American military personnel claim to have witnessed and awesome battle to the death between bin Laden and anti-terrorist ranger Beachhead, a former Advisor at the Covert Ops School in Central America. According to eyewitness accounts, Beachhead found bin Laden's secret sandbox base, and caught him off guard with the butt of Sci-Fi's laser rifle, which he'd been carrying ever since Sci-Fi's legs got chewed off by a dog. (Ed. note: Sci-Fi is currently carrying Spirit's arrowhead gun, since Spirit never came back from a sleep-over and Joey Dombrowsi's house and nobody really understands how that gun is supposed to work anyway.) After stunning the terrorist mastermind, Beachhead reportedly scissorlocked bin Laden's head and flipped him over onto a rock, the resultant stress snapping bin Laden's rubber band and reducing him to a separate torso, pair of legs attached by a little hook, and a free-floating crotch segment. Some eyewitnesses claim that a Beachhead pile driver was actually the culprit, but these reports are in the minority.

Taliban supporters have taken great issue with the U.S. reports, however, and are unified in their claims that bin Laden's rubber band snappage was the direct result of "the weight of the monstrously awe-inspiring Arab donger that Allah saw fit to bestow on him as a reward for his courage in facing the infidels." Preliminary coroner's reports have made no mention of such a donger, though part of bin Laden's free-floating crotch segment is said to have resembled a moderately-sized donger, according to some witnesses.

Yet another opinion is held by the American Red Cross, who's workers have gone on record saying that this tragedy could have been averted with proper rest, a little oil and far less sandbox duty for bin Laden himself.

Regardless of the cause, U.N. medical personnel are working around the clock to reattach bin Laden's legs, and may have to resort to an elasticy hair thingy or twist-tie if an appropriate replacement band cannot be found in time. A panel of impartial Arab doctors are overseeing the operation as well, to make sure that bin Laden's crotch segment is not mistakenly left out of the reconstruction process.

In a speech carried live by all major networks Sunday afternoon, President Bush called development a major victory in the war against terrorism, and added a personal message for Cobra Commander himself:

"We know you're out there, you lisping freak of nature. The American people will stand for your aggression no longer. You may have brainwashed Stormshadow, but now we have one of yours as well. You can only hide behind that weird bald guy for so long. We're going to kick you in the ass so hard you poop kidneys. You heard me. Give up now and we'll see about digging up some magic spores to turn you back into a dude, or if that fails, we'll get you into the reptile house of a nice zoo. If I have to fly out there and pull that tea cozy off your head myself the deal won't be nearly as sweet, I guarantee you. Sleep tight on your heating rock, jerkballs."

he Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences announced today that they are creating a special category of Oscar, beginning with this year's ceremony, that will be reserved exclusively for actor Kevin Spacey.

"We just really, really like the guy, you know?" said an Academy spokesperson. "That's why we've created the Kevin Spacey Perpetual Award, to be given to Kevin Spacey every single year from now on. We just think he's a great practitioner of his craft, and a delight to have around."

Speaking under condition of anonymity, at a location that may or may not have been the Viper Room, the spokesperson, wearing a Groucho mask and holding a handkerchief in front of his mouth to disguise his voice, went on to add that "This doesn't mean he won't still be eligible for Oscars in other categories, like Best Actor or whatever. It just means that we're assured of having him up on stage and thanking the Academy at least once every year."

"The great thing is, he's not some fat, bloated lunatic with his best years long behind him who walks around the set without his pants on and sends Native American women to pick up his awards and talk politics all night, like Brando. And he's not a young, talented firebrand like Sean Penn, who ignores our annual get-together and calls us all bad names. He's just a real nice guy in real life. Or so I've heard."

Casting a wary glance from side to side to make sure no one was eavesdropping, the spokesperson went to say, in a very low voice, "There is also a significant faction among the Academy members who still think he might actually be Keyser Soze, and I can tell you in confidence that that belief may have played a small part in this decision. Of course," he said, chuckling slightly and leaning back in his chair, "he could also really be the alien Prot, and disappear from this Earth in a beam of light at any time, heh. That's the beautiful thing about Kev is that you just never know, you know what I mean?"

When asked if there were plans to set up a special Perpetual Award for anyone else, the spokesperson replied, "Well, we tossed around Julia Roberts' name for a while, because most of us like her a lot, but the consensus was that we would hold off with her until she decides to get naked onscreen. Because really, how are you supposed to judge if a broad's got talent or not when she keeps her clothes on in every single movie she makes? I mean, what's up with that?"

Lately it seems like every-damned-body has been asking me what I'll be doing for Christmas, as if I'm going to say that I'll be attending a Roman Orgy and then invite them along, or that I'm going to slip up and say that I'm taking my doped-up sex zombie out of the closet to beat him with a big rubber tit or something. Then they can act all offended and then say they're not surprised and knew what I was up to all along. I know their game, the bastards. I don't know what gets into people around the holidays, you'd think the eminent threat of an Amtrak train slamming through their living room while they're right in the middle of watching "Furby Christmas Feast" would be plenty of excitement for them, but you'd be surprised. Most still have interest left over to get all up in my shit on a regular basis.

So before I start catching any nosy pricks going through my desk drawers looking for a turkey baster full of heroin, I'm going to set the record straight: I plan on spending this Christmas holed up at the Bricks estate, wrapped around a jug of Mike's Hard Eggnog and watching the Benny Hill marathon with my trusty basset hound, Foghat. And before you start ripping on Benny Hill, know that Foghat doesn't take kindly to such thick-headed slander, and the last fool to attempt such a breech of etiquette discovered later that the "Gravy Train" had made an unscheduled stop in his pennyloafers that night, if you follow my colloquial English here.

Now, I'm sure that the few of you who aren't asking yourselves why you don't own such a top-drawer canine are just itching your britches to ask why I'm spending the holidays alone this year, why I'm not nestled in the heart and hearth of friends and family and all that Hallmark shit. Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm still recovering from last year's Christmas debacle, when I spent the holidays with my friend Jeff who was visiting from Tampa and it damn-near turned me into a Buddhist, or some kind of non-Christmasing religious pain in the ass anyway.

Jeff and I go way back, we met during a spontaneous after-bar barfing contest back in college. We became fast friends after Jeff heaved one on a Hell's Angel and we had to dive into the back of a taxi to get away. It turned out that it wasn't even a taxi, just some dude with a yellow car, and I was in the middle of calming the guy down and explaining the situation when Jeff bjorked on that guy, too, and we had to jump out of the car in the middle of the expressway. Man, those were the days.

After college Jeff moved to Tampa to start a Ponzi scheme and I didn't hear from him for I don't know how many years. Though I was pretty sure I saw him in a security camera clip on "Bonehead TV", taking a digger on the wet tile coming out of a bathroom stall in Miami. Then, out of nowhere he calls me up last December and says we should get together and do something for the holidays. The next thing I knew he was on a plane.

Now, just for old time's sake, I played a little joke on Jeff and sent a bunch of guys dressed up like Klansman to pick him up at the airport. Bad idea. I don't know if he'd already paid for an airport shuttle or what, but he was in a seriously bitchy mood when he got to my house. There was a quick remedy for that at the bottom of a case of Safeway's cheapest beer though, and before long we were having a Christmas Eve for the ages.

In no time at all the hard liquor was out, Benny Hill was on the television and there was a roaring fire in the fireplace. We were all drunker than a couple of southern cops on a Saturday night, except for Foghat, who was lost in a world of Benny Hill's slapstick antics.

At some point in the night I asked Jeff what he'd been up to. I mentioned that whenever I'd asked around about him, I'd heard alternately that he was married to an entire tribe down in Peru or Ecuador or some shit, that he'd taken over the role of Birdie in the McDonaldland commercials, and that he was a door-to-door breast pump salesman in the Midwest. In response, he just stood up, dropped his pants and cut loose with a torrential stream of urine into the fireplace. I'm not sure quite what this meant, probably that they were all true, but before I got a chance to ask for clarification the flames leapt up Jeff's pee-stream and he flew about half-way across the room, screaming like a gopher running from a riding mower. Now opinions may differ on the subject, but I thought it was about the funniest thing that had ever happened in the Bricks living room, but then again it wasn't my Ballpark Frank that was getting plumped.

Before I could think to offer him an icepack or something, or even stop laughing myself, Jeff bolted out the door and into the wintry night, half-naked and still smoking. And I'll be damned if I ever saw that crazy fucker again. I doubt that anyone in my neighborhood will forget that night any time soon. Some say that on certain dark and quiet winter nights, you can still hear his woman-like shriek in the wind.

Personally, I'm getting low on old friends to blow up, so this Christmas Eve it'll just be me and Foghat basking in the warm glow of the television, turned up just loud enough to drown out the shrieking of the wind. Bricks out.

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