srael, plagued by suicide bombers and endless terrorism on the home front came from behind Friday to invade Palestinian territory and take its leader prisoner, winning March Madness in a surprising upset.

It was a victory for Israel fans who hadn't seen an insanity play of that caliber from the country ever before. It has become almost an annual tradition for Islamic fundamentalists to take the cake in March Madness, but the unexpected break in this year's event was the shot of life many Israel fans needed.

"Who knew they had it in 'em?" said former Israeli Prime Minister and lifelong Israeli fan Shimon Peres. "I would have expected more diplomatic routes. Pleas for sanity, stepped-up security, calls for sanctions or U.N. action to ferret out terrorism in Palestine and Israel. This was truly a new level for Israel fans."

President Bush was woken early this morning to the news of Israel's shelling campaign on Yasser Arafat's headquarters. The president responded promptly, "No shit?"

Israel has claimed the larger body count for quite some time against Palestine, though terrorists from the area have held the Madness advantage. Their primary form of retaliation and attack on the state, suicide bombers, is as insane as it gets. Though Israel surprised everyone Friday with their bold move to "isolate" the Palestinian leader Arafat by shelling his headquarters and engaging Palestinian troops in armed combat.

"What a terrific show of Madness," said Britain's Queen Elizabeth, applauding in her queenly fashion.

With his troops unprepared, outnumbered, and ill-equipped, Arafat barricaded himself in his bunker as long as he could and tried to inform the world of his situation via cell phone calls to American news sources. A call to CNN's Christiane Amanpour was broadcast in the afternoon Friday. Arafat eventually reached the commune late in the evening, by which time it was obvious the esteemed Palestinian leader had been dipping into the stock of the wine cellar.

"It is time for the U.S. … if the U.S. is an opponent of terrorism they should speak out against the terrorism taking place here in Palestine. The occupation—" A loud hiccup interrupted Arafat. "Curse you! You try to poison me? You and your Israeli terrorism? I am an asshole? You are the asshole! I will fart on your children while your wife makes me breakfast. This I swear, for all of Pakistan. Wait… did I say Palestine or Pakistan? That's crazy!"

The phone was then hurled across the room as the firefight increased in Arafat's compound. Either that or he passed out.

"It is a glorious day for Israel," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the press Saturday. "We have fought terrorism and won. If this does not stop the wave of lawless destruction, nothing will."

Sharon cut the press conference short when advised six Palestinian suicide bombers had detonated within the last fifteen minutes. The Prime Minister said he had previously mistaken them for celebratory fireworks.

he world said a collective "huh" March 22^nd when director Steven Spielberg hamfisted his cutesy 2-hour plush toy commercial E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial back into theaters to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Spielberg's vanity project.

In the movie, a flawless alien midget is left behind on earth by a superior alien race who have never heard of a head count before departure. The alien befriends foul-mouthed American kids and endorses M&M-style products and Pepsi before faking his own death in an elaborate intergalactic insurance scam and escaping in a flying bike, leaving the evil government agents to wonder: Why didn't he do that much earlier?

The film is a re-telling of the familiar friendly-alien-meets-asshole-humans story. "Re-telling" being Hollywood code for updating old scripts with modern slang and improving the special effects by leaps and bounds.

Spielberg started out in Hollywood making enjoyable adventure movies with low marketing tie-in potential such as Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Having invented the summer blockbuster, Spielberg went on to cut himself a slice of the pie with E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. He would later perfect action figure merchandising with Jurassic Park, after the dismal failure of his The Color Purple doll line.

To keep his product fresh for a new generation with more hyper-sensitive parents than his own, Spielberg digitally replaced rifles in the arms of federal agents with walkie-talkies. The director also changed the audio for a line spoken by Dee Wallace in which she tells the children not to go out dressed as "terrorists." Since no one in our current generation hates and fears terrorists, Spielberg wisely changed it to "hippies."

Also removed from the film: Scenes in which E.T. tries to eat a cat—better done on Alf; a scene where E.T. and child friend Elliot get hammered; two scenes where Drew Barrymore does a line of coke (interfered with Pepsi tie-in); and instead of building a phone out of household items, E.T. e-mails his alien friends using free webmail at Hotmail.com.

Digitally added into the film: Child actor Henry Thomas is replaced with modern acting wunderkind Haley Joel Osment; David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson from TV's The X-Files have a quick cameo; and E.T. is digitally altered so he's always wearing shorts and a bow tie, so as to dispel questions about his genitalia today's more mature generation will be quick to ask.

"I lacked the vision and technical skills to make the perfect film I wanted to make at the time," said Spielberg in a press conference the media were court-ordered to attend. "Now, thanks to modern technology and 21^st century revisionism, I can do it."

If E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial proves profitable the second time around, Spielberg has other plans on the table. He reports it recently occurred to him Jaws would have been much more fun if he had replaced the shark with a big, cuddly bear ala TV's Gentle Ben.

Also, said the director, Schindler's List would have been more effective if the Jews had won against the Nazis.

Anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the last twenty years doesn't need to be told this, but just in case I have any hermit crabs among my readership, let me state this loud and clear: Omar Bricks is not afraid of a controversial tee-shirt.

And if there really are hermit crabs among my readership, I encourage you to drop an email and let me know what the hell is up with that. I'm serious, that's some crazy beer commercial shit there.

But speaking of tee-shirts: I don't mean the generic, run-of-the-mill "controversial" tee-shirts that you see every fifteen year-old wiseass with thirty bucks and a smirk wearing at the mall. This column has no time for Big Johnson, Osama Bin Hidin', or any of that immature teenage shwag. And if your shirt's asking a question, it sure as hell had better not be about how the daschunds got in the pool, or however the song goes.

Nor am I specifically addressing the clever subversion of corporate logos that say Fuct instead of Ford or McDahmer instead of McDonalds or the many clever variants on Pepsi, though I do think those are pretty sharp. And believe me, Omar Bricks is all about those corporate scumbags getting their just desserts via a clever tee-shirt.

What I'm talking about here is the holy hell I recently had dished to me after I started wearing my new shirt that has a picture of a Chips Ahoy bag on the front, but it says Tits Ahoy instead. And before you start in with your weekly "Omar is a sexist smear of dick-drizzle" letters and your lightly perfumed feminist mail bombs and your diatribes about how I wasn't breastfed, let it be known that this particular shirt was a gift from my own mother, the venerable Mama Bricks herself. If you want to take up your sexism campaign with her, I say go right ahead, but be warned that she's highly paranoid and quick with a pair of nunchucks.

Now, I'm sure some would argue that I was just looking for trouble when I wore that shirt into the NOW convention last week, but anybody who's read the police report knows that I stumbled in there looking for a place to pee. A string of words to the wise and heavily inebriated: don't stagger into a feminist convention with your little benny hanging out unless you're wearing a Lillith Fair tee-shirt or have a Little Orphan Ani Difranco tattoo on your forehead to make everything balance out. You'll thank me for that one later.

But the thing that this ballroom full of garden-shear-wielding feminists didn't understand (besides the fact that screaming "Holy Shit, it's Axl Rose!" before you run away is the oldest trick in the book) was that they're barking up the wrong tree when they get their estrogen up over a simple celebration of femininity like a classy Tits Ahoy tee-shirt. What really should have worried them would be if I had staggered into that ballroom wearing an Oklahoma! tee-shirt and a hoop earring or something, because that would mean their mating pool just got one guy smaller. And if I were a lady I'd be watching what I said very carefully, lest I pushed the male sex over the line and found myself home alone on Saturday nights while all of the guys were out at a Freddie Prinz Jr. movie, if you know what I'm saying.

But some people just don't get it, and they're going to drone on about how my shirt's degrading to women, and blah blah blah. Reality check: what's really degrading are those Tom Cruise haircuts, ladies. Have you looked in the mirror lately? You look like a bunch of junior-high kids on a debate field trip. And those business suits should be the next to go. Nobody in this reality wants to make time with a lady dressed like Lee Iacocca, and you're going to liberate yourself right into a personals ad.

In the end, this is just a long way of saying that the emperor's new clothes are here to stay, at least until this shirt picks up a chili stain or two. Of course, both my secretary and the commune's mail clerk quit the first day I wore it to work, though not for the stick-up-the-ass reasons that you're thinking. I guess that last mail bomb just scared them more than they let on at the time. Needless to say, I think I'm going to have to put the temp agency on speed-dial. Bricks out.

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