he major news media again claimed victory over the world itself by creating news from nothing. The so-called story this week revolved around a 25-year-dead white boy named Elvis Presley.

Presley, the king of rock and roll, died August 16, 1977, which is news thanks to the lack of real stories this week as fans and the media celebrate the 25th anniversary of his death. Born in Tupelo, Mississippi, Presley was the first attractive white person to bring rock and roll to the nation, and obtained the title "king of rock and roll" in some undisclosed media ceremony.

"Elvis touched everyone," said an unidentified modern rock star pretending to be in touch with music history. "He was the one and only. There will never be another like him."

Fans flocked in presumably record numbers to Graceland to see the place where Elvis lived in strange, hermit-like seclusion until his death on the toilet. Presley was extremely popular in his lifetime, though that popularity peaked and waned over the years, ultimately leaving him most popular after his death.

"This here's Elvis week," proclaimed a Los Angeles classic rock station disc jockey named Danger Bob. "Celebrating the king of rock and roll by playing 'Hound Dog' every hour on the hour. Elvis was one of a kind, he invented it all. There will never be another like him."

His legacy in rock and roll already firmly established, Presley added another accomplishment to his resume this week, as he helped provide filler for news programs, networks, and magazines all across the nation, despite being dead for a quarter of a century.

The face and name of Elvis Presley have graced the covers of magazines, news footage, and news websites, as if some new event had occurred to warrant his coverage. CNN has been airing specials covering the history and influence of the King, Time named Elvis their Person of the Week, and VH-1 has even been playing Elvis videos during the rare hours they play videos.

"The news media owes Elvis a ton of thanks. He's saved our hash from the fire once again," said CNN correspondent Muffy St. Clair. "The president's on vacation and unable to supply us with the usual amount of ignorant quotes. The War on Terror sure hasn't gotten any more interesting—nobody knows where Osama bin Laden is or if he's even alive. Hell, even the celebrities are boring this week. What's new? Anna Nicole Simpson? Puh-lease. A dead Elvis is more interesting than an alive her any day."

While the media has been working overtime to bring Elvis back to national attention, the public at large is invariably unchanged.

"Elvis?" said man on the street Carl Ginser. "Yeah, I like some of his stuff. That 'Suspicious Minds' song is kick-ass. I think the Fine Young Cannibals did a cover of that or something. Oh, and he would, like, raise his lip and snarl. And he always left the building and some guy would announce it, I think. I'm not sure why he's on the news so much lately, though. He's still dead, isn't he? Not a zombie or nothing?"

This reporter, for one, is thoroughly convinced he is. However, until Red Bagel agrees to spring for the plane ticket to Memphis and a shovel, we'll never know for sure. But whether he actually breathes or lies very quiet in his grave, thanks to all the needless media sensationalism, Elvis is still alive today in some way.

he heads of MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Warner Entertainment, Disney Enterprises, and Universal City Studios called a press conference today to announce a dramatic restructuring of the way movies will be released and promoted in America. The announcement was the final step in a ten-year plan designed to cope with Americans’ shrinking attention spans and the prevalence of Attention Deficit Disorder among American teens, who drive the movie industry.

According to the studio heads, movie trailers will now replace full-length feature films in American theaters. Trailers, the previews for upcoming films that until now were shown for free preceding the main feature, have grown over the last ten years from one minute in length to the four to five minutes of today. While trailers once served to whet an audience’s appetite for a film with only a slight tease of what was to come, they had been gradually expanded over the years to tell the film’s entire story in capsule form. Purists criticized the dumbing-down of the medium and the spoiling of surprises, thought to be the handiwork of inept studio execs. But today’s announcement revealed it to be part of a larger master plan, with major studios gradually weaning film-going America off of the old system both by making the trailers complete experiences in and of themselves, and making modern feature films so unbearably long that watching only the trailer instead would seem like a reasonable alternative.

“This is the completion of a logical progression,� stated Columbia Pictures head Amy Pascal. “For years we’ve been faced with the problem of how to deliver an audience their favorite stars doing the things that made them famous, without all of this plot and writing getting in the way, and without taking up so much of a movie theater’s valuable time. Now we can get the seats filled, get the stars up there on the screen for a few quick one-liners and an explosion, some T&A, whatever, and a few minutes later they’re out the door, buying tie-in key chains and hats and what have you. Filmgoers interested in a more immersive movie experience will still be able to watch the entire film in the Deleted Scenes section among the Special Features on the DVD release. It’s perfect.�

“It used to be, you see the trailer, you get hooked, you go see the movie,� continued Pascal. “If for some reason the movie leaves you wanting more, you go buy the book. Way, way too much work. Now, you eat the sandwich, you get hooked, you go see the trailer. If you still want more, you can watch the whole movie on the DVD, if you’ve got that kind of time. So watching the movie is like what reading the book used to be. I suppose you could still read the book after that, which is the equivalent of what used to be having written the movie yourself, but we prefer if you just start over and buy the sandwich again. Or ride the ride.�

Studios are currently in debates over what to call the new, three-minute long versions of the films, since Americans may still be resistant to shelling out eight bucks to watch anything called a “trailer.� Among the front-runners are “The Ritalin Cut� and “The Director’s Bad-Assed Niece’s Cut.� Others prefer renaming the full cut of the movie “The Marathon Cut� while giving the 3-minute version an appealing tag like “The Buzz Cut� or “Flavor-Blasted.� Still others argue in favor of Reader’s Digest magazine’s offer to sponsor all new films as “Reader’s Digest Condensed Classics,� though some think that a title like “Reader’s Digest Condensed Classics Presents Adam Sandler in The Hockey-Loving Retard� will lose teens who forget what they’re doing before they get done reading the title.

You meet some interesting people riding the bus. It's a lot easier to make friends on the bus than it is in a car, since in your car, most of your interactions with other drivers involve shouted sexual boasting or frenzied calls for bloodshed. On the bus, it's way more laid back. Everybody knows they're not getting anywhere any time soon, so they relax and take the time to read the paper, huff paint or strike up a conversation with their fellow riders. It's easy to make friends swapping stories about how your car blew up and the fire department is suing you for money you don't have.

One of my bus friends, let's call him Manny, works as a security guard down at the laundr-o-mat. Raise your hand if you didn't know laundr-o-mats had private security professionals in their employ. Me neither. The national rate of tube sock theft must have gone through the roof since the last time my dryer caught on fire. Anyway, funny thing about Manny is that he used to be on TV. Well, a TV anyway, his brother's TV. His brother Miguel would hook up his new video camera to the TV and direct little Columbo mysteries for Manny to star in, written by their little sister and some guy they found living in their storage unit.

You should have seen the shows, they were pretty fun. Though truthfully that's more of a tease on my part than anything, since it would be impossible for any of you to ever see them. Miguel didn't know he could tape the shows while they were shooting, since he hadn't got that deep into the video recorder's manual at that point. So it were strictly a live event. Usually we just watched Miguel and Manny in the room, since what ended up on the TV was so jerky and poorly lit that you'd rather eat raw oysters on a roller coaster than look at that for more than about four seconds.

But still, it was cool that Manny was on TV, at least until he got a big head about it. After a couple of shows, Manny started demanding his own bedroom and a cheese tray and everybody else kind of lost interest in doing the show. Finally Manny got tired of waiting for the writers to barf up another mystery for him to solve every week, so he went out into the real world to find some real mysteries to solve, which got him his ass kicked at the speed of light.

When Manny got out of physical therapy, he decided that being a security guard would be the best way to get paid to solve mysteries, or at least watch soap operas all day. Plus, they let you carry a walkie-talkie. Regular folk are harshly ridiculed for walking around with walkie-talkies on their belts (unless they're also carrying ray guns), but not security guards. Therein lies their power.

Manny and I have this game we play called "Stealth," where we sneak up and scare the crap out of each other at the most unexpected times. Manny's not very good at it, usually it's just me stealthing Manny most of the time, but he did get me good one time when I came home one afternoon and found him having sex with a prostitute in my bed. That's Manny though, just when you're about to count him out it turns out he's got an ace card ferreted up his ass.

On Manny's first day on the job at the laundr-o-mat I wanted to bring down the granddaddy of all stealths on him, so I went there the day before and snuck into one of those big dryers before they closed the place. I hung out there all night (thank God for flip-books), and when Manny came to work the next morning, I waited quietly until he walked close to the dryer. Then, "Booya!" I stealthed his ass something fierce! It must have been some kind of world-record stealthing because Manny banged his knee brace on a change machine and he went down like a giant sack of shit. I've never laughed so hard in my life. I think I also set an Omar Bricks land speed record getting out of there when Manny came back after me with that screwdriver. Sweet flaming Jesus that was funny.

Turns out Manny's got a lousy sense of humor, so guess who can't ride the bus to work any more. It's definitely for the best though; did you know you can take a taxi to work? Talk about moving up in the world, your own seat and everything. As far as I'm concerned, the unwashed masses can have their precious bus, they don't know what they're missing.

So it's time to break out the jealous mugs, boys. Omar Bricks has got a private driver! Yeehaw.

Bricks out.

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